


A Prince's Worth

by StormDancer



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Knight Gabe, M/M, Pining, Prince Tyson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-04 06:29:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 51,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18338057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormDancer/pseuds/StormDancer
Summary: Once upon a time, there was a honorable knight (pretty handsome too),who slew a dragon (which really people should care about more),and returned home to save the prince (his prince) from a loveless marriage,by great feats of strength and valor (mostly without help. Well, some without help),all for the honor of the prince (for honor. Sure).





	1. For Home

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [venvephe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/venvephe/pseuds/venvephe) in the [wesmashing](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/wesmashing) collection. 



> My contribution to the Avs Spring Fic Challenge! Thanks for venvephe for the prompt, it was so much fun. 
> 
> I know nothing about: any of the real people portrayed (including anyone who is portrayed less than favorably) or any sort of medieval history/politics portrayed here. This is, as I told my beta, approximately 3/4 Tortall, maybe 1/8 England, and 1/8 Westeros, with some Merlin thrown in, so if you're here for historical accuracy...don't be. 
> 
> The full prompts was: 
> 
> Royalty AU, but reverse of the typical casting: Tyson is the prince, and Gabe is captain of the guard/another role or job in the castle. A fantasy/medieval/magical setting is preferred over a modern-day royalty take, but I would love to see some mutual pining and agonizing over each other and the roles they are supposed to fill. But with a happy ending!  
>    
> Super extra bonus points for awesome use of other Avs players in various roles, all of whom are extremely aware of the Pining Situation and keep up a vigorous network of well-meaning gossip re: Tyson and Gabe's ridiculous, epic, heretofore unresolved romance.
> 
> Enjoy!

"Is that the castle?” Josty asks, rising up in his stirrups to point.

Gabe follows his finger, though he really doesn’t need to. He’s been on this road before, though not for a year. He knows the landmarks, how long it takes to the castle from each one at a walk, at a gallop, at a ‘the prince is whining and if he doesn’t get back soon he’s going to bitch about it forever’ sort of pace. But still, he looks—and there’s the castle finally come into view, nestled at the bottom of the mountains, all grey stone and banners that Gabe’s too far away to see the detail on but knows the bear crest, the town spread out in the valley below it. It’s not the most impressive place that Gabe’s been too in the past year, but—

“Yes,” Gabe says, and nudges at Zoey’s flanks so she’ll go faster. He didn’t need to; she knows what her stable smells like as well as he does, and can feel the promise of it. “That’s home.”

///

He might have overspoke.

It’s still another two hours before they reach the town, and maybe Gabe slows down a little to look at it—at the few still-charred buildings not yet repaired from last year; at the way it’s still not quite as bustling as it would have been ten years ago; at the way people eye him and start whispering excitedly—and then they definitely slow down when a wagon had fallen over in the middle of the main street and spilled a bunch of cabbages and somehow Gabe and Josty got involved picking them up but not entirely to the cabbage-owner’s satisfaction, and then they pass the hedge maze twisting along the grounds outside the walls and Josty wants to gape at it for a while, so all in all it’s nearly sunset when they reach the gates of the castle proper.

“A bath,” Josty moans, as they near gate on the outer wall. The wall’s mostly repaired, at least, though the burn marks are still visible on the stone. “You have baths here, right? I want a bath.”

“Yes, we have baths,” Gabe retorts. He’s looking forward to a bath too, if he’s being honest. A bath and some real food and a real bed. His bed, ideally, though he’s not sure they kept it.  

And, well, “Who is this?” comes a voice from the sentry box right outside the gate, and Gabe looks in, grins at the man inside. “I don’t know if we can let you in, sir knight.”

“Hi, Mikko,” Gabe replies. “Who put you on watch duty?”

Mikko makes a face. He’s somehow grown even more in the past year, filling out into the promise of muscle that his lanky frame always had, but his smile’s the same as the boy Gabe had trained and seen knighted, grinning irrepressibly as King Len placed the sword on his shoulders.

“EJ didn’t like how I sorted the armor,” he tells Gabe, with a glint in his eye that makes Gabe think he did it on purpose. “This is my punishment.”

“Sounds like you deserved it,” Gabe replies. “Now can I please go in?”

“I don’t know, I wasn’t told to expect a strange knight.”

“Mikko.”

“I mean, I guess I should have. We knew you’d be back soon.”

Gabe pauses from where he was planning to just go through, because Mikko clearly wasn’t going to actually stop him. “Why?”

Mikko snorts. “We knew as soon as it was announced you’d be back.”

“What’s that mean?” Gabe demands, but Josty groans.

“Gabe,” he whines, and Gabe rolls his eyes. He really should have just told Josty’s mother that he didn’t take on squires, but the woman had taken him in when he’d been bleeding mostly to death, so he really didn’t think he could. He might have survived out in the wilderness, though. Dragon bites weren’t always deadly. 

“Who’s that?” Mikko asks, leaning around Gabe. “Did you replace me already?”

“Aw, you know I could never replace you,” Gabe tells him, and urges Zoey forward through the gates, so he only gets a little of Mikko’s response. Josty urges his horse up so he’s next to Gabe as they go through.

The main castle courtyard is as bustling as it always is, servants rushing around to prepare the evening meal, some pages training with sticks in a corner, stableboys taking the horses of some visitors, lords and ladies in their fancy clothes, speaking to each other and barely looking at anyone else. Gabe leads Josty to the side, away from the main chaos, and into the courtyard right to the side.

He can’t help his smile as he gets there. This, more than any other place, even more so than his parents’ house he left as barely a boy, is home—the knights’ quarters, the knights’ stables, the armory, and the main castle forming the square that is the courtyard that holds the training grounds, some of the tilting horses that are only used when absolutely no one’s around. And on one side of the knights’ quarters, the blue and maroon banner of the Prince’s Guard splayed out of a window, fluttering in the wind. Gabe touches his own surcoat, the same color there, the star on his shoulder that makes his surcoat different from the rest.

Zoey neighs, clearly pleased to be home, and Gabe stops staring to dismount, wincing at his sore muscles.

“Can I take your horse, sir?” A stableboy Gabe doesn’t recognize comes up to him. He clearly recognizes Gabe, though; his eyes are wide as he looks at him. He swallows. “Did you slay the dragon?”

“I did,” Gabe tells him, and grins at the gasp the boy gives. “But I’ll take my horse.”

The boy bites his lip. “Sir Johnson says I’m not supposed to let knights take care of their own horses,” he tells Gabe, clearly hesitant. “He says that’s just a way to torture undeserving horses.”

Good to know EJ hasn’t changed.

“I’ll take care of Sir Johnson,” he tells the boy. He knows anyone EJ’s trained will take good care of the horses, but he likes to take care of Zoey himself. “Can you—”

“No, wait.” Gabe looks up at the pounding feet of someone running from the knights’ quarters, to the bright red hair of JT. The squire’s crest is gone from his uniform tunic—Gabe hadn’t known he’d been knighted.

“Hi,” he starts, but JT cuts him off.

“Will, take care of the horses. Gabe, you have to come with—who’s that?” He asks, looking at Josty.

“I’m Tyson.” Josty tells him, a little sharply. He must really want that bath. “Sir Landeskog’s squire. Who are you?”

JT blinks at him. “I’m J—Sir Compher. Um.” He shakes his head, then turns to Gabe. “Come on, you have to come in right now. You don’t have a hood, do you? I’d forgotten how bright your hair is.”

“You’re one to talk.” Gabe wants to see to his horse and take a bath and have a hot meal and maybe tell the story about his bravery to a few dozen knights, and maybe, once he’s not wearing an entire road’s worth of dust, get word to the castle, start planning his presentation to the king with Tyson. But even if JT’s not a squire anymore, Gabe can still guess whose messages he’s carrying. “Can’t I settle in?”

“No, there’s a plan.” JT shakes his head urgently. “You’ve got to get out of sight. Will,” he adds, to the stableboy. “Don’t tell anyone else he’s here, okay?”

Will pouts. “But—”

“No one,” JT repeats, sternly. “Prince’s orders.” Will scowls, but he nods. JT looks back at Gabe. “Coming?” He doesn’t add the ‘prince’s orders’, but he doesn’t need to. Gabe knew where it was coming from. He doesn’t know what’s happening, but these are the sacrifices of being a knight, he guesses. He does what the prince commands. 

“Yes. Josty, I guess we’ve got more to do.”

“It sounds like really only you—” Gabe glares Josty quiet. If he has to delay his bath, so does his squire.

“Is there at least food, where we’re going?” Gabe asks JT, as they fall into step with him, walking quickly towards the knights’ quarters.

JT gives him a look. “Of course there’s food,” he answers, like it should be obvious. Maybe it should have been. “He hasn’t changed.”

“He could have,” Gabe mutters. He runs a hand through his hair, shakes it out; tugs on his tunic. Even without a bath, he can look presentable. Like a knight just come back from a noble, glorious quest, done for the honor of the Guard—of the Avalanche.

“What are we doing?” Josty asks, bouncing up to JT. “What’s the plan? Why—”

“I can’t tell you,” JT tells him, but Gabe’s pretty sure that means that he doesn’t actually know himself. “Where are you from?” He holds open the door to the quarters for the other two of them, then closes the door quickly, glancing around. Gabe keeps his head ducked. They’re going a back way, avoiding spaces where knights not in the Guard frequent—most of them are probably at mess—but it can’t hurt to be careful. Especially because he’s not sure if this is necessary or dramatics.

“It’s a little town up in the mountains,” Josty tells him. “Are you a squire? Whose squire? I don’t think Gabe said anything about you.”

“I’m not a squire anymore,” JT replies, clearly proud. “I was knighted a month ago.”

“Congratulations,” Gabe tells him, clapping him on the shoulder. JT grins. “I didn’t think Tyson would ever let you go.”

“He said I was getting too mouthy so he had to find someone he could boss around,” JT laughs. “He’s going to have to go pretty far afield for that.” He stops at the door to EJ’s quarters, knocks twice, sharply. “It’s me. I’ve got Gabe.”

The door opens, and—“Oh good, you’re here,” Tyson says, and tugs Gabe inside by the tunic.

Gabe snorts, or smiles, or rolls his eyes, or all of them together. A reaction he hasn’t had for a year, but they he still remembers intimately, that was on the tip of his tongue for that year. No one really understood that reaction, on the road; how a knight could smile like that about his prince, fond and overly familiar, but they hadn’t met this prince. Haven’t smiled down at him,

“Yes, hello to you, your highness. It was my honor to battle through great hardship to slay the dragon for you. I too am thankful to be home safely, though a bath wouldn’t go amiss.”

“Yes, all that.” Tyson waves a hand. It’s only been a year, and he hasn’t actually changed, but Gabe still finds himself just looking—he’s put on muscle in his shoulders and chest and thighs, but his messy curls are the same, his bright eyes and sharp eyebrows and mobile mouth, the careless combination of simple hose and tunic and jeweled rings and a chain around his neck. He’s somehow more in person than in Gabe’s memory—memory doesn’t have his energy, the exact tilt of his smile. The way his gaze flicks over Gabe, the way it makes Gabe want to preen, tug on the surcoat displaying his colors. “But we have a problem, so we’re moving on to that.”

“That’s why you smuggled me in here as if I’m a spy or something?” Gabe asks.

“Did anyone else see him?” Tyson asks JT, around Gabe’s shoulder.

“No. Will did, but I told him not to say anything. Mikko’ll make sure the guards keep their mouth shut.”

“Good.”

“Who’s the new kid?” Gabe looks past Tyson, and, oh, there are more people here—EJ’s sitting at the table, his long legs kicked out in front of him and his gaze skeptical as he looks at Josty; Nate’s sitting across from him, his arm in a sling.  Z’s hovering in the background, looking as usual a little too big for the room; Barbs and G are sitting on the bed.

“Tyson Jost, my new squire.” Gabe gestures at Josty; he raises a hand to wave. “Josty, this is Sir Johnson, his squire Sam, Sir Mackinnon, Sir Zadarov, and Sir Barberio.”

“Welcome,” Nate tells him, with his welcoming smile. That’s more of a greeting than Gabe got.

“And,” Gabe goes on. “This is His Highness Prince Tyson Barrie, Lord of the Avalanche, second in line for the throne, and current very bad host.”

Josty bobs into an awkward bow, his eyes suddenly wide. Sometimes Gabe forgets, after over a decade of knowing Tyson and his utter disregard for proprieties, that meeting a prince is something very few people outside the nobility could ever expect to happen. That maybe it should come with some degree of awe. “Your highness.”

From his face, Tyson forgot too. “That makes me sound so stuffy. If you’re a part of the Guard, it’s Tyson,” Tyson tells him, wearing his easy, welcoming smile. “If I could make everyone else call me that, I would, but they don’t listen to me. And like to pretend to respect me. No one here even pretends, even though I can have them thrown in the stocks; you shouldn’t either.”

“He won’t actually throw anyone in the stocks,” Gabe tells Josty, who looks a little worried. “He’s too soft for that.”

“Don’t tempt me, Sir Landeskog,” Tyson throws back, wrinkling his nose like he’s ever in his life thrown anyone in the stocks. Or threatened to, as more than a joke. Even when Gabe thinks he should have. It would put some of the worst gossips of the nobility in their place. “I—”

“Am I late?” The door opens behind Gabe, and Sven slips in. He pauses, then, “Hi, Gabe. You’re back?”

Gabe holds out his arms. “I am.”

“Welcome. Good timing.” Sven pats at his forearm, then he glances at EJ. “This still counts as the day before, I win.”

That gets a bunch of boos from all the knights, which Gabe doesn’t understand but he lets it go. If it was just Tyson in here, he might have thought it was just EJ or Tyson being weird; Tyson likes to say that it’s his prerogative as prince to be as weird as he wants. But this is most of the Prince’s Guard, no one who isn’t loyal to Tyson first and always. Gabe remembers what a war council feels like, from the days camped out in tents in mud and grime and rivers running red. This is more cheerful, for sure, but—it’s still a war council.

“Does someone want to tell me why I’m here instead of taking a warm bath?” Gabe asks loudly, cutting through the knights’ bickering about timing. “Also, I was promised food.”

EJ snorts, but gets up. Tyson walks back to the table to the empty chair there, and Sven takes a seat next to Sam on the bed. Josty, with a quick glance around, leans against the wall next to JT. Gabe takes EJ’s seat, because he definitely deserves it for some reason.

“You’re back, so I guess you’ve heard?” Nate starts. Tyson snorts, loudly.  

“Yes.” Gabe doesn’t look at Tyson. The news had made its way quickly across the countryside, especially with the prize. “I suppose congratulations are in order?” he says, still looking at Nate.

“Fuck that.” Tyson pushes back from his seat so he can start to pace. It’s good timing, because EJ thumps down a plate of bread and meat and cheese in front of Gabe, shoves one at Josty, and then takes Tyson’s vacated seat. Gabe rips off some of the bread, but now he can’t not look at Tyson. “I’m not getting married to whoever wins some stupid challenges.”

Gabe had guessed that would be Tyson’s reaction. He’d thought, when he heard the news of the king’s proclamation, that Tyson couldn’t have agreed to it—not Tyson who’d set his own path, who laughed at all the rules of the court. But he’d also wondered—maybe in the year he’d been gone Tyson had found someone, someone of the right rank who could make him laugh and stop him from his most foolish ideas and cut off his worst rambles with a kiss. Maybe the challenges were just a ruse, set for that person to win, and Gabe would return home to a Tyson madly in love. He hadn’t known what that would look like, even if he told himself he’d be happy to see it.

But that’s not what’s happening, Gabe reminds himself, and takes a bite of the bread. He chews, swallows. “Then why did you agree to it?”

“I mean—it’s what’s done, and it’s time.” Tyson shrugs. He makes his voice go low, into his usual imitation of his father. “We need to show we’re strong, and it’s time you do your part, Tyson.” He makes a disgruntled face. “And Victoria and my mother went along with it.”

That, Gabe is surprised about—Tyson and the crown princess are close as twins, and he should know. “And anyway,” Tyson goes on, “I guess they’re right. I can do this, at least. It’s better than my father just choosing someone.”

“Seems like the same thing,” Gabe points out. No one else is talking, they’re just watching the two of them. There’s something in this that feels like an ambush.

“No, it’s not,” Tyson retorts. “Because you’re going to compete for me.”

Gabe blinks. Tyson’s grinning at him, smug like he just came up with a great plan. “What?” Gabe demands. His heart is beating very fast. “I—they won’t let a knight compete, you have to marry royalty, or nobility, not—”

“No one mentioned you marrying Tys, Gabe,” EJ drawls, smirking.

“No, of course not, I wouldn’t just—that’s not—I mean, you’re—” Tyson stammers. He’s gone red too, and the smile’s faded. “No. As my champion.”

“They won’t let Tyson compete,” Nate adds. Gabe’s still feeling a little winded.

“I tried,” Tyson adds. “I could absolutely beat everyone who’s going to compete. But father and Victoria—and I’m guessing the Council, because they already hate me—said that wouldn’t be a good way to start a marriage.” He makes a face. “I think that anyone who can’t handle me beating them isn’t someone worth marrying.”

Gabe agrees. Strongly. People tend to see Tyson and not look beneath his clowning surface to the skilled knight beneath. Not that Tyson can beat him, because Gabe’s definitely better—except maybe with a mace—but he’s still amazing. Anyone he marries should know that. Should love him for that.

“But they didn’t say anything about Tyson having a champion,” Nate goes on. “And if they win, then it’s like no one’s won, and Tyson doesn’t have to marry anyone.”

It’s...not a bad plan. It makes sense, in the letter of the law. It leaves Tyson not marrying anyone he doesn’t want to, which Gabe likes as a plan—otherwise he might have to organize some sort of midnight rescue, which feels complicated and he definitely doesn’t trust Tyson climbing down a rope from a tower. This is a better way to make sure Tyson gets what he wants.

“And it has to be me?”

“We need someone who’s going to win, and it can’t be me,” Nate says, gesturing to his arm. That sets off a wave of protests from the other knights in the room.

“I was going to do it, if you didn’t get here in time,” JT adds. It gets more protests. Gabe glances at JT. JT is going to be a great knight, but he’s not there yet. He might have lost, and then…

“But you were going to get here,” EJ puts in, certain. Gabe glares. He didn’t—it’s basically coincidence, he’s back in time for the challenges. He’s back because he’d been away too long, because Josty needed better training than he could give on the road, because there was no reason to stay away. Not because of the news of any challenges for Tyson’s hand. “So. There really wasn’t a danger of that.”

“So why does this mean I’m being smuggled in?” Gabe asks. He doesn’t know why he’s pushing this so much—it’s a good plan, he likes competing, and he’s not going to let some dick who happens to be good with a sword marry Tyson—but it still feels like something’s missing.

Tyson and Nate exchange a look. “Um. Well. Father and Victoria doesn’t exactly know about this plan?” Tyson says quickly, like if he goes fast enough Gabe won’t hear it. “We’re hoping if I ambush him then he won’t be able to say no. And if we can hit him with me having a champion and it being the knight who killed the dragon, it’ll be even harder.”

Gabe’s eyebrows go way up. “I’m not going against the king,” he says. He’s a knight of the realm. He swore an oath—to Tyson and the Avalanche, yes, but it also went to the realm. That matters. He won’t be seen as an oathbreaker.

“It’s not against, he just—doesn’t know. He hasn’t forbidden it,” Tyson argues.

“I won’t betray my oath,” Gabe insists. “Don’t ask me to do that, Tyson.”

For a second, they just look at each other—Tyson standing, his arms still crossed; Gabe sitting and insistent. Then,

“Can we have the room?” Tyson asks, but it’s not a request. Tyson doesn’t act like a prince often, and especially not around them, but sometimes the fact that command’s in his blood comes out. The other men rise, file out with only a bit of grumbling. Nate rests his hand on Tyson’s shoulder before he leaves, a question in it that Tyson answers without speaking; Josty gives Gabe a wary look.

“Go with JT,” Gabe tells him, giving JT a look to confirm that’s okay. JT nods. “He’ll get you settled.”

“Are you sure? I can—”

Gabe has to smile. “I’ll be fine. Go on.”

Josty goes. EJ makes some irritated noises about being kicked out of his own room, but he goes too.

Then it’s just Gabe and Tyson, alone.

“I’m not disobeying the king,” Gabe tells him again, before he can say anything, because once Tyson starts talking it’s sometimes hard to stop him. “Don’t ask me to do that.”

“I…” Tyson bites at his lip, looks away. “I know. I know I shouldn’t, and I don’t like to. It’s not fair to you. I know you think it’s important, and that you do what I—I mean, I don’t even know how into the actual marriage father is, and the council’s just full of stuffy old nobles who think that this is the only way I’ll get taken off their hands.”

That doesn’t sound like the king, if Gabe’s being honest. The king, in Gabe’s private thoughts, is one of those stuffy old men, and is the sort of person who would marry off his son in a contest. “Do you know that?”

Tyson shrugs.

“That’s not enough,” Gabe has to say. He hates this. Hates how Tyson’s looking. Hates that this is his homecoming, and not what he’d imagined—some big fanfare, Tyson’s face and how he’d be trying not to smile when Gabe bragged about slaying the dragon. Maybe a feast in his honor, where Tyson would drink too much mead and end up leaning into Gabe’s side like he always somehow ended up when he was drunk at feasts, ignoring the judging eyes of the nobles at the prince consorting with the knights. But it goes against everything in him to deny Tyson, too. “I can’t—”

“I don’t want to get married,” Tyson interrupts. He sits down heavily on the bed. “I don’t—who knows who’s going to show up, but like, I’m not going to be in love with any of them. And I know princes don’t marry for love, but I’d like to at least like my future spouse, and I might not even get that.” His shoulders are curving in, and he looks small, and Gabe would slay another dragon to stop that. “And I don’t want to get married anyway.” He lifts his head, meets Gabe’s eyes.

That’s unfair. Tyson can’t just say that, when he’s looking at Gabe like that, like Gabe’s the answer; when all his usual smiles and energy have been tamped down. He didn’t even look like this during the war, when everyone had been downtrodden and sick to death of the fighting and Tyson’s never-ending good cheer had lifted all of them from the dolor.

“JT’s great, but he’s not there yet,” Tyson’s going on. “Nate’s still injured, this isn’t EJ’s thing, and I don’t want Mikko to risk anything like this, not when he’s so newly knighted.” Gabe scowls. He doesn’t like the list of people ahead of him that Tyson thought about. “But you,” Tyson’s still going, “You just slayed a _dragon_. You’re the Knight-Captain. The news of your quest has already reached town, and everyone’s buzzing with it, father wouldn’t dare do anything to you. Even the nobility is talking about it. And—you can win,” Tyson says, like that’s a given. “So, please, Gabe. This is me asking you as a friend, not a prince. Help me.”

Gabe can count the number of times he’s heard Tyson be this sincere on one hand, probably, in all the decades since he came to court. It makes looking at him hard, at Tyson stripped open. It makes him think of—of being boys together, daring each other to climb higher trees and chasing each other through the hedge maze and Tyson’s muttered explanations of all the weird rules of the castle so that the noble’s children would stop mocking Gabe; of being knighted, kneeling at King Len’s feet and looking up and seeing Tyson beaming behind him, and saying his oath to the crown and seeing Tyson’s smile and vowing to himself to keep that smile there; of a few months later and kneeling in front of Tyson instead, swearing himself to the Avalanche; of the war and seeing Tyson’s shoulders bowed as their numbers shrank, then seeing him straighten before he went into the tents to smile and joke and laugh with the men and never say how it weighed on him; of coming back and seeing Tyson laughing in the market, bargaining for sweets. Of the dragon, and how Tyson had seen him off, trying to smile and failing; how Gabe had promised to come back.

Gabe’s first oath, technically, was to the king and the realm, and only after that to the Avalanche. But, “You know I’m your knight, your highness,” Gabe tells his prince, and that’s no less true.

Tyson flushes, glances away for a second, then looks back at Gabe. “So you’ll do it?”

Gabe takes a breath, but he always knew this was inevitable, from the moment Tyson asked. He nods. “You’re lucky I got back in time. Were you really going to risk your marriage on JT? He’s barely a knight.”

Tyson’s smile is huge, overwhelming; it makes Gabe feel like he’s glowing with the force of it. “Well someone was taking his time getting home, so I had to go with my other options.”

“Someone just killed a dragon and thought he deserved a vacation,” Gabe retorts. “Did I mention I slayed a dragon?”

“Once or twice.” Tyson’s relaxing now, still grinning, settling into their usual teasing. “I’m not asking about it because then you’ll start talking about it forever and we can’t risk your head getting too big. It might not fit in your helmet.”

“I think I’m allowed to brag. It was a _dragon_.”

“Yeah, well. I sat through all of Lord Masterly’s speech to the council on eggplants and didn’t make one joke about it, so I think it’s about the same,” Tyson retorts, and Gabe knows he’s smiling too. He feels like he hasn’t smiled like this in a year. “Okay, I’m going to get everyone back in, then we can plan our approach. I want peak drama, so you should be good at that.”

Gabe perks up a little. He does like a dramatic entrance. Tyson laughs, but he pauses before he opens the door. “It’s—really good to have you back,” he says, fast again. “Like, I always knew you could do it, it wasn’t like I was scared, except, I mean, it was a dragon? That’s kind of a big deal. And a year’s a long time, and I just—it’s not the same here, without you.”

Gabe gets up. It’s easier to be moving, when Tyson says things like that; when he can be moving instead of processing. “I missed you too,” he tells Tyson, and Tyson makes a face.

“No, I didn’t miss you, don’t go telling people that,” he says, but then he rolls his eyes and tugs Gabe into a hug. Gabe hugs back, dips his head into Tyson’s hair. Tyson’s warm and strong and solid and he feels like home.

The hug lingers, giving the lie to Tyson’s claim, and Gabe can feel Tyson exhale. He trusts Gabe, is what that tells him—trusts him not to lose. Trusts him to be his champion. Gabe will do this, he thinks, another vow on top of his other ones. He’ll make sure Tyson doesn’t marry anyone he doesn’t want to, anyone who isn’t worthy of him.

Then there’s a knock on the door. “Not to interrupt,” EJ calls, “But Tyson has perfectly good chambers up at the castle if you need that and I’d rather get my room back at some point tonight.”

“Your room is going to be the dungeon,” Tyson retorts, but he lets go of Gabe, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “Sorry, I—um. Thanks. This is—you didn’t have to do this.”

Gabe rolls his eyes. “I couldn’t leave someone else to be your champion,” he says, and goes to open the door. Tyson should know that, by now.

///

The throne room is decked out in true royal fashion, which with these royals means eye-killing blues and golds and reds. It’s very impressive, and Gabe doesn’t need to be a politician to understand that that’s the point, with the delegations from all the surrounding kingdoms and large landholders here. There’s probably a full dozen delegations there, and that’s not counting the people from the smaller lands or even some roving knights probably just here to try their luck and get some attention at the tournament, even though they definitely would never be allowed to marry the prince. Some of them Gabe knows, people who have been around court or even whose courts he stayed at during his quest; some he doesn’t.

The delegations form a sort of line in front of the dais. Behind them, the nobility lounge, talking among themselves and eying the delegations. Gabe’s too far away to hear what they’re saying, but he can guess—judging who’s going to win, who they want to win. Who they think will tame the prince, though Gabe hates that he knows they think that. Behind and around them are the knights, those standing guard and those just waiting to hear the announcement.

And in the front of the room, on the dais, sits the royal family—the king at the center, the queen at his right hand, the crown princess at his left, and Tyson next to the queen. They look regal, a matching set, in their gold and robes and jewels. Gabe doesn’t picture Tyson like this, really—for the year he was away Tyson was always the Tyson in the yards with the knights, the only show of his wealth his rings and the garishness of his tunics and the quality of his arms. That’s safe, when it’s just the Tyson of his memory. When it’s the reality, though, it’s not safe to forget that this is Tyson too—the prince. Destined for command, for rule. Or something like that. Something more than just hanging out with the knights.

But not for any of these people, come to challenge for his hand. Gabe shifts in the corner where he’s waiting, his hood up and his cloak pulled over his chain mail. He wants the presentation to be over already.

“Ready for your grand entrance?” EJ asks, coming over to him. The rest of the Guard are scattered around—JT’s on the dais a step behind Tyson; Nate would usually be up there too, but today he’s sitting with the rest of the knights and clearly not happy about it. Josty’s hovering around too, looking displeased about it, but Gabe suspects that’s because he wants to be more in the thick of things than he can be before Gabe reveals himself.

“When am I not?” Gabe asks, grinning. He sort of is looking forward to this. He can’t tell if Tyson is, but he thinks maybe—he keeps glancing to Gabe’s corner, because he is the least subtle person in existence.

Then a herald bangs his staff on the floor, and the room falls quiet, looking forward as the King holds up a redundant hand. Tyson’s shifting in his seat, even as all eyes fall on the dais.

“Welcome,” the king begins. The acoustics in the hall are good enough that it booms, though the king’s never needed any help with volume. “We are pleased that so many of you have come to join us on this joyous occasion.” Tyson very visibly makes a face. Gabe covers a laugh with his hand. “As we search for a proper spouse for our eldest son, Prince Tyson, Lord of the Avalanche, victor at Rogers Valley.” Tyson’s flushed, caught halfway between the helpless, slightly surprised smile he always gets when anyone praises him, and especially his father, and embarrassment at the situation, but he lifts a hand with a sheepish grin as there’s polite applause from the nobility and considerably louder applause from the Guard. EJ catcalls very loudly from next to Gabe, and Gabe winces.

“Don’t draw attention over here,” he hisses.

“I’m keeping it light,” EJ retorts. “Otherwise you’re going to set Tyson on fire with how hard you’re staring.”

“I’m not staring,” Gabe retorts. Tyson looks good tonight, of course, handsome enough to make any suitor here not regret their choice to compete. Gabe considers advising him to tone that down, maybe choose clothes that cling less tightly to his arms and shoulders. The more invested the other suitors are in the competition, the harder it is for Gabe. “I mean, the size of his necklace makes it hard to look away, but that’s it.”

“Yeah, his necklace,” EJ drawls, but the king’s still talking.

“Tomorrow, the challenges will begin,” the king goes on. “There will be three challenges. We will begin with a tournament, testing our suitors’ skill at arms. Those who excel at that challenge will be eligible to compete in the next, and the victor of all three challenges will be declared the winner, and the most worthy of our prince’s hand.”

“And the lands and money and title,” a noble near Gabe whispers, loud enough to carry. Tyson’s smile flickers, and Gabe’s hand tenses on his sword hilt as the lady next to him snorts.

“They’ll have to drag him out of the gutter first,” she says. “Do you think they know that?”

“They know they’ll get to be a prince consort, that’s enough,” the lord tells the lady.

EJ’s hand is on Gabe’s arm. “Easy,” he mutters, though he’s glaring at the lord and lady as well.

Gabe knows—and he can see Tyson’s smile and tension and he doesn’t want to make this works. He needs to fix this. Tyson deserves—he deserves more than a loveless, political marriage. If there’s one thing Gabe knows about him, it’s that he has so much love to give; he should be able to give it in marriage too. And Gabe will make sure of it.

EJ must sense that Gabe’s not going to challenge the entire nobility to a duel and really cause a scandal, so he lets go of Gabe’s arm.

“So now,” the king declares, “All those who would take part in the challenges will declare themselves, so that my son may know his suitors.”

“And so we can set the lists,” EJ mutters. Gabe nods his agreement.

“If you would challenge all comers and face all adversity to win the prince’s hand—come forward,” the king booms, and Gabe rolls his eyes. And people call him dramatic. He glances at Tyson again—his lips are twitching, and Gabe knows he’s thinking the same thing.

There’s a beat of silence, then a man steps forward, brown-haired with a triangular face. “I am Lord Duchene,” he announces. “I have come to win Prince Tyson’s hand.”

“We welcome you,” the king replies, and Lord Duchene steps back.

It breaks the ice, and more come—Lady Amanda, Lord Wilson, and Prince Jamie make up the highest ranked among them—though Gabe doesn’t know why Prince Jamie is here, given how long he and Tyson have known each other and how Gabe’s never heard of an inclination from Tyson to marry Prince Jamie in all those years. Lord Kerfoot is less highly ranked, the son of a minor lord who recently became very rich when his mines struck gold, though Gabe knows little of the son. Lady Sabrina is also lower ranked, but Gabe has heard of her and her skill at arms—there was apparently a dust-up with a wyvern nest that she came out covered in glory, blood, and feathers.

The rest begin to blur together, names Gabe hasn’t heard of, from smaller, more far-flung lands, and some not landed at all. The king’s smile turns forced at them, but he nods all the same.

“Imagine if one of them won,” the same lady whispers to her companion.

“The prince would probably like it,” the lord replies, with a careless glance over at Tyson. “He likes spending time with commonfolk.”  

“Last chance,” EJ says, drawing Gabe’s attention away. The line of challengers is ending, and it appears that no one else is coming.

“I said I would do it.” Gabe replies.

EJ nods. “I know, but—” he makes a face, like it’s hard for him to say. “Last chance not to compete in challenges for Tyson’s hand except that if you win, he doesn’t marry you.”

“That’s what I agreed to, yes,” Gabe replies. He tugs at his tunic under his cloak, straightening it. “If I win, Tyson doesn’t have to marry anyone.”

“This is a great idea,” EJ mutters, and Gabe can’t even tell if he’s being sarcastic or not.

“That appears to be all the suitors,” the king says, and Gabe suspects there’s a list somewhere because he doesn’t really wait after the last person stepped back. “With that, we will—”

“Actually, there’s one more.”

All heads turn to Tyson. The lord near Gabe snorts, loudly. Tyson swallows, but he’s sitting straight up, and a smile’s playing around his lips.

“There is?” The king looks confused enough that there definitely was a list. The Princess is giving Tyson a skeptical look, like she thinks he’s up to something but doesn’t know what. The queen’s already sighing. Gabe starts to move forward, waiting for his cue.

“Yes,” Tyson agrees. “There is. There’s my champion, competing on my behalf.”

“Tyson—” the king starts, out of the side of his mouth, but Tyson keeps talking over him.

“Why should my suitors get all the fun?” Tyson asks. “I want to win too. Even if it’s only sort of me, but like, by proxy.” That gets a laugh, even from the nobles. Gabe pushes forward, through the semi-circle around the dais. “So I’d like to present my champion.”

Gabe’s got the timing down—he makes it out of the crowd and to the center of the open semi-circle around the dais, shrugs off his cloak, and drops to one knee, drawing his sword as he does so he can rest it on his knee.

“My champion,” Tyson repeats, and Gabe can hear the smug smirk in his voice and grins down at his own knees. “Sir Landeskog, Knight-Captain of the Prince’s Guard. And, now,” Tyson adds, and he’s clearly trying to sound casual and failing. “Dragonslayer.”

Finally, someone says it. Gabe likes how that sounds, he’s got to say, especially in Tyson’s mouth, smug and proud. Like he likes the whispers that spread out, more confusion than awe but he’ll take it. He can hear, loudly, one of the challengers ask, “Is that even allowed?” and another, “Did he really slay a dragon?”

Gabe ignores that. “Your majesty.” Gabe looks up, rises. He can see the king take in the surcoat he’s wearing over his mail—the colors of the Guard, not the Barrie gold and blue, and Tyson’s personal dog crest. It’s a declaration as much as anything else. “I am pleased to report to you that the dragon is slain.” That gets another wave of whispers. At least someone’s impressed. “And now that I have returned, I am honored to serve as my prince’s champion.”

He’s mainly looking at the king, but he spares a look for Tyson too—he’s biting his lip but he’s staring at Gabe too, like he didn’t believe Gabe would actually say it until he did. Gabe keeps his face even, smiling, like this isn’t insubordination and possibly treason.

“Sir Landeskog,” the king says. He sounds like he’s trying for even, but he’s as bad at subtlety as his son. “We are pleased to welcome you home.” He glances sidelong at Tyson. “If we had known you had arrived, we would have given you a welcome fitting for your quest.”

“He arrived late last night, there was no time,” Tyson inserts, before Gabe can say anything. The king focuses on Tyson again. “Luckily we have a feast all ready to go. Two for the price of one.”

Gabe thinks he deserves his own feast, but he does get now’s not the time to say that. He’ll bring it up with Tyson later. Maybe after he wins.

“Indeed,” the king agrees, and pastes a smile on his face. “Well, now our list is complete. Tomorrow, the tournament begins, but tonight—we eat!”

That gets predictably mountains of applause, and then the royal family rises, and the princess leads them out through a door to the side of the dais. The king is still vibrating, and he meets Gabe’s eyes on the way out—definitely angry—and jerks his head.

Shit. Gabe stands, sheathes his sword, and takes the few steps up to the dais so he can fall into step a few feet behind and to the right of Tyson. Tyson throws a look over Gabe’s shoulder, apologetic and excited and nervous and something else Gabe can’t quite identify, and Gabe gives him his best confident grin back. It seems to work; Tyson’s smile settles, and he turns back around as the room begins to stir behind them, as servants start to move around them, resetting the tables of the great hall into some sort of order.

The antechamber off the Great Hall gets refitted almost every year, as the king and queen have more ideas—which Gabe knows about only because Tyson complains about it every year as it happens—but the bones of it apparently stay the same , from Tyson’s stories—a small room, with comfortable overstuffed chairs and a table that’s always supplied with food and wine, even when there’s none in the Great Hall. Gabe’s only been in it once or twice, though, generally when he was going honor guard for Tyson; it’s part of Tyson’s other life, Tyson as a prince.

Right now, it’s not very comfortable—every member of the royal family is standing, and they all have somewhat identical stubborn looks on their faces, though the queen and princess are talking quietly, and Tyson’s immediately gone to the food table, choosing some cheese with the sort of forced cheer Gabe knows means he’s very uncomfortable.

“What the hell was that?” The king demands, as soon as the door shuts. Gabe takes a step closer to Tyson. “A champion, Tyson? Really?”

“Well you said no to my idea of participating myself,” Tyson says, like that’s an answer to the king’s objection.

“I—you—it—” the king sputters for a moment. Tyson eats another block of cheese, and Gabe might almost think he was as careless as he sounds, if he didn’t know him. “Are you trying to undermine me? Is that what this is, a rebellion? Making us seem weak? That I can’t even control my own son?”

Tyson winces, ducks his head. The queen makes a face, but she doesn’t say anything, and neither does the princess, though she looks like she’s thinking about it. Gabe takes a step towards Tyson, his hand falling unconsciously to his sword hilt.

“I’m not not participating,” Tyson mutters. “I’m not running off to the Avalanche or anything. I’m just changing the odds, a little.”

“You’re ruining our chances for a good marriage,” the king snaps back. “You had one job, Tyson. We had—”

“I’m not marrying anyone who’s not better than Gabe,” Tyson interrupts. “I mean, what would be the point? The competition is supposed to measure worthiness? Well if they can’t do better than Gabe than they aren’t worthy. I think I should get to choose that much.”  Gabe manages not to grin to himself. Tyson catches his look and rolls his eyes.

But it puts the king’s attention on Gabe. “And you,” the king thunders. “You swore an oath—”

Gabe takes a breath. “I don’t see how I’m breaking it, your majesty,” he says, as evenly as he can. He swore an oath to the king and to the Avalanche, and he can make them work together. “Like the prince says. I’m simply ensuring that whoever marries my prince is worthy.” And if it’s no one—well. It’s not Gabe’s fault no noble here is worthy of Tyson.

“It was my idea, anyway,” Tyson says loudly, and the king’s attention swings again. Gabe lets out a breath. “Gabe’s just obeying my orders. As my champion.” Tyson glances up, meets his father’s eyes. “And a dragonslayer.”

“And what if no one beats him?” the king demands. “What if our dragonslayer is too good a knight, and no one wins? We need a good marriage, Tyson, you know that. After everything we’ve been through.”

Gabe really doesn’t like the way the king keeps calling the marriage ‘ours,’ like he’ll have to live with it. And he does not appreciate being called the king’s. But—

“If my champion wins,” Tyson retorts, and his jaw is set stubbornly. That possessive settles on Gabe like a mantle—like the surcoat and the sigil he’s already wearing. “Then no one will have proven themselves, and that’s no one’s fault. And it’ll show we’re strong even after the war and the dragon, which is the whole point of this anyway, right?”

The king blinks. Gabe manages not to scowl. Did the king think his son was that stupid that he hadn’t noticed? 

“He has a point, father,” Princess Victoria points out, speaking for the first time. She’s been keeping quiet, which Gabe hadn’t expected—from what he’s heard and seen, the crown princess is as vibrant as her brother, if more likely to keep her tongue. And she loves her brother. “There’s no down side.”

The king whirls. “No—”

“And everyone heard you say it was acceptable, so there’s no point arguing it,” she goes on, sounding very reasonable. She’s better at it than Tyson.

“No, he just needs to get it out, don’t you?” the queen puts in. She puts a hand on her husband’s arm. “And now he’s done,” she goes on, and the tone of her voice brooks no disagreement, not even from the king. Gabe’s never heard her speak like that—generally she’s soft-spoken or laughing, never stern. “And we should go to dinner before the guests get too rowdy.”

To Gabe’s surprise, that’s taken as final. The king grumbles, but he lets his wife lead him out of the room. The princess hesitates, looking at Tyson and Gabe. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” she tells Tyson frankly. “I can only back you so far. I need to work with these people.”  

“I know.” Tyson grins wryly. “Thanks, Veebs.”

“Whatever I can do, Teebs,” she replies. Then she looks at Gabe. “And—good luck,” she tells him. Gabe bows, more on instinct than anything else. “If anyone can pull this off, I think it’s you.”

“Thank you, your highness—”

She laughs, waves a hand, and Tyson rolls his eyes. “He’s never this polite when it’s me,” Tyson whines, and Gabe glares.

“That’s because you don’t deserve it,” he tells Tyson, and Tyson pouts. The princess laughs again.

“He has a point there, Tys,” she says, and then leaves the room too.

As soon as they’re alone, Tyson takes a deep breath. “Well, that went as well as it could have.”

“That was as well as it could have?”

“Neither of us are in the stocks and we both have our heads, so yeah, I’m saying this is a win.”

“Neither of us were going to get beheaded,” Gabe informs him, rolling his eyes.

“Fine. But if father weren’t showing off, the stocks would have been a real possibility.” His lips twist. “Guess that would have been a bad look, though, putting the man everyone’s competing for in the stocks. Unless one of the suitors is into that, I guess. Which, that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Though the stocks seem like the would be uncomfortable.”

“Tyson,” Gabe interrupts, before that gets too far. Before he starts making Gabe think about it—how Tyson might prefer to be tied down.

“Right, yeah. Anyway.” Tyson shakes his head, flushing a little. “So. I guess we’re a go, then? It went well.”

“Well I hear I’m worthy,” Gabe retorts, not hiding his grin now. “That I’m the person they all have to be judged against.”

“Just because you’re a low benchmark,” Tyson tells him.

“No it’s not,” Gabe informs him. “It’s because I’m the most worthy person you know.”

 “I mean, you’re just tall and blonde and handsome and look really good in my crest and killed a dragon and are the knight captain of my guard.” Tyson’s getting progressively redder. Gabe—he smoothes a hand down his surcoat, shifts a little.  It’s good to know that his prince thinks so highly of him. That’s—good. “I mean. And Nate was unavailable. Otherwise, it’d be all him.”

“Yeah, sure,” Gabe tosses back. It’s a good thing he got here in time, then. He doesn’t like to think about Nate being Tyson’s champion. Sure, Nate’s Tyson’s best friend—Nate’s from the town, grew up here even longer than Gabe did—but Gabe’s his captain. His champion. “Has Nate killed a dragon?”

“Always with the dragon,” Tyson sighs dramatically.

“It’s part of my title now, you said it, not me.”

“I take it back.”

“Nope, can’t do that.” Gabe grins at Tyson, and Tyson’s grinning back, and it’s—Tyson has a nice smile. He always has. Gabe wonders how many of the suitors out in the Great Hall care.

Like he can read Gabe’s mind, Tyson’s smile flickers, fades. “Well. I should go out there, I guess. You should go get some sleep. I need you in fighting shape tomorrow. Not that you’re ever not in good shape, but—”

“I’m coming too,” Gabe tells him.

“You really don’t have to.” Tyson’s gaze slides away from him, towards the wall. “I’ll have JT and Nate and half the Guard out there, and I can say you wanted to rest. There’s no need for you to come.”

“I’m your champion, of course I’m coming with you.” Gabe means to say it like a fact, like Tyson’s stupid for not understanding that. It comes out a little more like a vow. He swallows. “Anyway,” he goes on. “Who else would keep you from eating too many of those cakes the cook makes? You know you always do.”

“Because they’re the best, and I have no regrets,” Tyson retorts, scowling at him. “I can still put you in the stocks, you know.”

“And how would that look for your champion?”

“Like I need to choose a better one,” Tyson mutters, but Gabe knows when he’s bullshitting.

“Yeah, yeah. Come on, I’m hungry.”

“Oh, when you’re hungry we need to go, when I’m hungry it’s ‘Tyson stop whining’,” Tyson mutters, but he runs a hand through his hair, tugs at his tunic, fixes the lay of his necklace and the tilt of the circlet on his head. “Fine. We can go.”

“About time,” Gabe retorts, and falls into his place a step behind Tyson on their way out of the room, back to the hall.

In the hall it’s loud and smells like the truncheons of stew the servants have set out against the wall. Tyson takes one look around the room, at the high table where the king is still glaring at his stew and the princess is calmly if a little stiffly talking to the lady next to her, at the nobles’ tables filled with whispering and sidelong looks at Tyson. Then he shrugs, and goes with Gabe to the table where the rest of the Guard is seated.

“Well that’s done,” he announces, taking a seat. “Anything interesting happen after?”

The rest of the Guard jumps in eagerly to fill in their thoughts and critiques, mainly of Gabe’s cloak flicking skills. Gabe watches, though—around the rest of the Hall the suitors are all looking at Tyson, even as they eat generally with their own retinues. Gabe can try to see him through their eyes—sitting not with the nobility his rank demands, but with his men as if that’s normal, as if he doesn’t have a care in the world, his laughter loud among the sounds of the hall. They probably just see that, see him feckless and undignified and ignoring the duties of his rank. Or maybe they just see the lands and power they’ll get. Or maybe they see the muscles under his shirt, the way his hose cling to his thighs, the way his lips curve as he laughs with Nate.

“What do you think, Gabe?”

“Hm?” Gabe blinks, looks across the table at Mikko, who rolls his eyes.

“I asked what you thought your chances were in the tournament tomorrow,” Mikko tells him. “So I know the odds to place. But I think I’m lowering them now. It’s hard to hit a shield when you’re staring at the royal pavilion.”

“I’m not staring at anyone,” Gabe retorts. “And I’m going to win for sure, so there are your odds.”

“I don’t know. Lady Sabrina’s supposed to be a devil with a blade. And Prince Jamie’s unseated you once or twice,” EJ puts in.

Gabe glares. “I can handle him,” he says. He’s not going to lose.

“Yeah, haven’t you heard?” Tyson inserts, leaning around Nate to get into the conversation. “Gabe slayed a dragon.”

“What? He did?” Nate asks, with a gasp. “I hadn’t heard!”

“No one told me!” JT pipes up, and so it goes. Gabe rolls his eyes and huffs—honestly, slaying a dragon is important, he saved the realm, it’s enough of a successful quest to prove himself once and for all—but—it’s good to be home.

No one stays in the Hall late tonight—everyone has to be up early for the tournament tomorrow, to watch or to participate—so it’s still early and everyone’s basically still sober when courtiers start to trickle out. The suitors do too—some of them try to catch Tyson’s eye to bow, but most of them don’t bother. Lord Duchene seems to be considering going over, but in the end he doesn’t.

Prince Jamie does, though—comes over with a wary smile for the table and one specially for Tyson. Tyson grins at him and jumps to his feet, tugs him away for a private word, that, Gabe can’t help but notice, involves a lot of flailing arms and very-non-subtle looks at the Guard’s table, and, specifically, Gabe.

But then Prince Jamie nods and leaves, and Tyson comes back to the table, a little flushed.

Gabe leans around Nate this time to touch his shoulder. “Everything all right?” he asks. Tyson nods.

“Yeah. But, um. I’m going to bed. Long day tomorrow.”

“Yeah, you have to sit around, that’s so hard,” Gabe drawls, but he gets up too. “I on the other hand have to actually compete, so I’m going to go to bed too.”

“I’d compete if I was allowed,” Tyson mutters, sulky.

“I can come—” JT starts, getting to his feet too, but Gabe’s shaking his head and Tyson waves a hand.

“No, it’s fine, Gabe can take care of me all the way to my bedroom.” EJ chokes on the ale he was drinking. Gabe rolls his eyes. Tyson grimaces. “Whatever. JT, you’re off for tonight.”

“Actually,” Gabe puts in, ignoring the earlier comment. “Can you make sure Josty’s settled? I don’t want him getting lost or alone or anything.” Though from where Gabe’s sitting, Josty—who’s in the middle of an animated, cheerful conversation with G and some of the other squires—looks okay.

“Yeah, sure.” JT nods eagerly, then scoots over so he can join that conversation. It wasn’t long ago that he was one of them, Gabe figures; maybe it’s a good excuse.

“Great. That’s settled. Anyone else want to come?” Tyson asks, looking around. No one moves, other than Z, who shrugs. “Great, then we’re going. Bye all. See you in the morning.”

“Barbs and Sven are on bodyguard,” Nate tells him.

“The rest of us are with you.” EJ grins at Gabe. “Aren’t you excited?”

“Overjoyed,” Gabe drawls, and then they manage to extricate themselves.

They spend most of the walk back to Tyson’s quarters quiet. Tyson’s surprisingly good at quiet, when he needs to be. It lets Gabe turn things over.

“What’s Prince Jamie doing here?” he asks, when he can’t stop dwelling on that. “He’s got a duchy of his own already.”

Tyson shrugs. “Yeah, Jamie’s mainly here as a favor to me. In case you didn’t show.”

“You would have just married him?” Gabe demands. Tyson says it so casually, but Gabe—he unclenches his fist from his sword. Takes a breath. “Just like that?”

Tyson shrugs. “It wouldn’t be the worst thing. We’re friends. The Avalanche and Star aren’t too far. Jenny and Victoria get on great already, it would help cement that alliance. Jamie and I have talked about it before, if one of us needed an out.” Tyson’s mouth twists into something like a smile, at what must be Gabe’s expression. “That’s what a younger child’s marriage is, Gabe, especially one like me. I’ve always known that.”

“What do you mean, like you?” Gabe demands, and then, “But you don’t want to get married,” he clarifies. They wouldn’t be doing this if he did.

“No. Not yet, at least. I want some time to pretend, you know? That I can actually marry the person I love and all. So I want to put it off.” Tyson presses his lips together. “And I want more say than a competition, god. What if someone awful wins? I didn’t like the look of Lord Duchene.”

“Uh-huh,” Gabe gets out, but he keeps hearing Tyson’s words. The person I love—not like a hypothetical, but like they exist. Gabe went away, and Tyson fell in love, and now Gabe is going to compete to make sure Tyson can marry that person.

He steals a look at Tyson, who’s gone quiet again. Maybe he’s thinking of this person. Dreaming about what it would be like to actually be able to marry him.

He will, Gabe vows to himself. If that’s what his prince wants, Gabe can fight for that. As long as this person is worthy.

“This plan isn’t like, a total disaster, right?” Tyson asks, suddenly. “It’s going to work? Or it could?”

Gabe raises his eyebrows, glances at him. He’s biting at his lower lip, eyes on the floor as they walk. So, not thinking about his beloved. Excellent. “It’s a little late if it is.”

“Gabe.”

“You know it’s not a disaster. You and Nate and EJ have been planning it for weeks.”

“Yeah, but.” Tyson glances at him this time. “EJ only tells me my ideas are stupid, and Nate never does. You tell me the truth. So. This is just a stupid idea, right? I think we could get out of it, if it is—I could say that you got hurt, or we could all just run away to Avalanche, or—”

“It’ll work.” Gabe catches Tyson’s shoulders as they stop in front of his rooms. Tyson looks up at him, still chewing on his lip but his gaze steady. This is the Tyson none of the court notices, none of suitors see, unsure but cleverer than any of them give him credit for. The Tyson that isn’t the prince on his throne or the knight in the practice ring. “It will, Tys. I promise.”

“God,” Tyson breathes, and then shakes his head, smiles. His tongue flicks out to wet his lips. “Good. I’ll hold you to that.”

“You should,” Gabe agrees. His hands are still on Tyson’s shoulders; he can feel the way he’s tense. “I mean it.”

“You always do mean your vows,” Tyson agrees, and it doesn’t entirely sound like a compliment. Then he shakes his head again. “Um, one more thing.” He eases away, so it’s not so much that he shakes off Gabe’s hands as it is that its more convenient for them both that Gabe not be touching him anymore. Gabe lets his hands fall to his sides. “Can you feel out the rest of the suitors? They’ll be more honest with you. Worst case, I want to know who to root for.”

“You won’t need to,” Gabe protests, but it’s a good plan. “Of course. I can ask Josty too as well, squires get a different view.”

“Good, I’ll get JT to help him. And if any of them are bad to their horses I’m sure EJ will tell me. Loudly.”

Gabe snorts. Tyson smiles, still a little rueful but that’s sloughing away—no one can keep him down for long. “Get a good night’s sleep. I need you in peak condition tomorrow.”

“Yes, your highness,” Gabe retorts, rolling his eyes. Tyson makes a weird noise, then shakes his head again.

“Good night.”

“Good night,” Gabe tells him, and waits until Tyson’s gone inside before he leaves. One can never be too careful.


	2. The Tournament

 “Okay, you’re here,” Josty tells Gabe, slipping through the blue fabric that makes up the door of Gabe’s pavilion next to the lists. Gabe’s not sure how they pulled this together for him last minute, or what the protocol is for his insignia, but they’ve put him in the same sort of generic pavilion in the Barrie blue and gold that he usually uses at tournaments, and no one’s told him not to wear his insignia as Knight-Captain of the Prince’s Guard, so he has the Avalanche blue and maroon on, the St Bernard crest, and Josty’s wearing the same—he must have gotten that fitted somewhere too.

He’s also grinning, clearly too energetic for this hour of the morning and excited for what Gabe thinks might be his first tournament. “I’m here,” Gabe agrees. “Have they made any announcements?”

“They posted the lists. You’re on third, but you have to be out there for the opening.”

Gabe nods. He picks up his sword from the rack it’s sitting on, inspects it. It looks good—Josty has a knack for this. “Who am I against?”

“Lady Kaya,” Josty tells him.

“I haven’t heard of her.”

“Neither has J—Sir Compher,” Josty tells him. “He said that she was newly knighted.”

One of the many knights come to get tournament experience, then. Gabe did that himself plenty, years ago. Gabe nods. “Point her out to me when we get out there. Is Zoey—”

“She’s taken care of, I checked. Well, Sir Johnson yelled at me for checking because he said it meant I didn’t trust him, or maybe you didn’t trust him, and did you really think I would let that poor horse go into the tilting lanes unprepared?” Josty pauses, then. “Is he always like that?”

“He likes horses better than people,” Gabe says. He looks at the basin, shrugs, then just dunks his head in. It’s cold and unpleasant, but it’s still early and he needs it to finish the job of waking him up. He flicks his wet hair back, brushes it out of his eyes. “Can you—”

“Um.” Gabe spins—he can see Josty jump, then he just sees Tyson, hovering in the doorway. He’s dressed in princely-casual, with only a few jewels and his signet necklace on, but a shirt with golden weave that picks up the tan in his skin and the flush in his cheeks and the glints of gold in his eyes, which he blinks at Gabe. “I—um.”

“Your highness!” Josty bows. Tyson tears his gaze away from Gabe to look at him in slight confusion.

“Don’t do that,” Gabe tells Josty, rolling his eyes. He smooths his hair back again. He can’t tell how wet his shirt is, but he suspects it’s very. “You’re going to give him a big head.”

“I’m not to one who has to worry about that,” Tyson retorts. “And I like him. He treats me with the respect I’m due.”

“I treat you with all the respect you’re due,” Gabe teases. “It’s not my fault that’s not very much.”

Tyson makes a face at him. “Tell that to all my very honorable suitors out there, I have them very fooled. One of them bowed nearly to his toes when I walked by. It was definitely a show of…flexibility.”

“Is that what you want, then?” Gabe asks. He picks his sword back up, so he can inspect it again. Maybe he missed something. “Someone who can bow to their toes?”

“Flexibility is important,” Tyson hums thoughtfully. “But, no, I think I can have other priorities. And dry off.” He grabs a cloth lying on the chair to throw it at Gabe. “You can’t go getting sick now.”

“Aw, worried about me?” Gabe asks, grinning.

Tyson shakes his head vehemently. “Not even a little. I just want you and your see through shirts and wet muscles to win. Once you get through the challenges, you’re out.”

Gabe takes the cloth, uses it to dry his hair. Tyson watches him, biting at his lip.

“So.” Gabe sets the cloth down. “Are you just here to tell me you don’t care, or…”

“No. Um. No. I…” Tyson bites at his lip, but then he nods to himself. “Look, you’re my champion, right? And this is a tournament. So I thought—I mean, champions are sort of supposed to have favors, right? To wear during the joust.”

Gabe’s heartbeat feels very loud in his ears. “They do sometimes,” he agrees. He’s been to a lot of tournaments. That happens.

Tyson is red, but he keeps going. “And since you are fighting for me—I mean, they’re all fighting for me, but you’re fighting _for_ me—so it seemed like maybe—”

“It would make sense,” Gabe agrees. His voice sounds a little foreign to him. Tyson’s right, of course—the Prince’s champion should have the Prince’s favor; he’s fighting for his sake, after all. It just…Gabe’s worn favors before, both for fun and seriously, but never his prince’s. It’s never felt like this. “You probably should.”

“Only if you want, though. I mean, if there’s someone else, who would be mad—”

“There isn’t.”

Tyson’s lips twitch. “Do that water trick out of the tent and I bet there will be.”

“Water trick?” Gabe asks, but then he snorts, shakes his head. “Will your father be mad? You shouldn’t be playing favorites.”

“I think that ship has sailed,” Tyson points out.

“I’m your favorite?” Gabe asks, grinning.

“Nate’s my favorite,” Tyson informs him. Gabe’s like, seventy-five percent sure that’s a lie. “You’re just my favorite in the competition. Or, I don’t know. I do like Jamie. And Lord Wilson seems pretty cool.”

“But neither of them are wearing your favor,” Gabe tells him.

Tyson rolls his eyes. “I’m not giving anyone that wrong idea. Here.” He digs in the pouch at his waist, produces a strip of cloth in Avalanche colors. “If you want it.”

Gabe takes it. It’s smooth as silk as it runs through his fingers. “I will hope to do it honor,” he says vaguely, looking at it. At Tyson, who squirming again.

“Ugh, stop. Just win, that’s all I ask.”

“That I can definitely do.”

“Good.” Tyson grins at him. “Okay, I can’t stay, I need to be up in the stands all day, apparently, but the rest of the Guard will probably be by. Jamie’s stronger on his right so if you’re against him make sure to keep your shield arm up, you know you drop it. And I’ve heard that Lady Sabrina is better close, so use your range—”

“Yes, thank you, which of us has won half a dozen tournaments?” Gabe asks. He folds the favor in his hands. “Go do your very hard royal work.”

Tyson snorts. “Hey, sitting around all day is tough.” But he grins, even though Gabe knows he’d rather be down in the lists at well.

“Sounds difficult,” Gabe agrees. Tyson smirks at him, but then it fades, just a bit.

“Um.” Tyson rubs at the back of his neck. “Just. Good luck, Gabe. Don’t hurt yourself on my account.” 

Gabe looks down at him. Somehow they’ve gotten closer. Tyson’s lips are pink and parted just a bit, and—

“Thank you, your highness,” Gabe says. Swallows. Steps back. “Not that I’ll need it. Not even a dragon could kill me.”

“Always with the dragon,” Tyson retorts, but he shifts back. Away from Gabe. “I’ll see you in the lists, then.”

He gives Gabe a little salute, nods to Josty, then slips out.

Gabe’s fist is still closed around the favor.

“You know, when you said you knew someone else named Tyson and so I had to be Josty, I didn’t really believe you it was the Prince.”

Gabe turns. He’d…mostly forgotten Josty was there, hovering to the side. “Why would I lie about that?”

“Because most people don’t go around addressing the prince by his first name?” Josty points out. He heads to the armor rack, picks up the greaves.

“This prince they do.” Or at least, everyone except the stuffier nobility.

“This prince you do,” Josty counts. “JT said it was bad, but I didn’t realize.”

“Didn’t realize what?”

Josty blinks at him, all wide-eyed, fake innocence, as he kneels down to start strapping the armor around his calves. “How close you and the prince are.”

“He’s close with all his knights—with everyone—”

“How much it matters to you to bring him honor,” Josty adds, and, well. Gabe can’t argue with that.

“He’s my prince,” he says. “That’s what a knight does for his prince. Brings him honor.” Bring him honor, and bring yourself honor too, in the meanwhile. Gabe didn’t get to be Knight Captain just by being friends with Tyson. He didn’t slay a dragon through any royal favor at all.

“That’s one way of putting it,” Josty mutters, but then the tent flap flips up again.

“Oh good, you’re almost ready.” Nate steps in, followed by Mikko and EJ and Barbs and Z, until the pavilion is almost full of the Guard in their dress chainmail, probably ready for a salute. “You heard the order?”

“Lady Kaya, right?” Gabe asks. “What do we know about her?”

“I was watching her yesterday,” Mikko pipes up, and Gabe focuses on preparing.

It’s only when he’s in full armor other than his gloves that he lets his fist open, the favor pouring out of it to go to Josty to tie around his forearm.

Nate’s eyebrows go up when he sees it, and he cuts off Mikko and Barbs’ argument about the best defense against a spear to say, “Tyson gave you his favor, then?”

“I am his champion,” Gabe points out. Firmly.

“Hey, Nate. You’ve been Tyson’s champion in tournaments before,” EJ says loudly, looking right at Gabe. “How many times have you worn Tyson’s favor?”

Nate taps his chin. “You know, I can’t think of any.”

“How odd,” Mikko pipes in, and Gabe gets faced with three sets of blue eyes. Gabe rolls his own.

“This is a different sort of tournament,” Gabe inserts. He holds still as Josty ties the favor on, then holds out his hands for the gloves. “Okay. Let’s go.”

“Yes sir.” Z salutes with just enough emphasis to be making fun of Gabe, and Gabe glares as they all troop out of the pavilion.

///

Gabe lines up with the rest of the suitors, Zoey fidgeting beneath him. She can tell what’s coming, he knows, and she’s excited too. Gabe’s getting more and more exciting, as he draws her into the line in the center of one of the tilting fields—the skies are blue, the air is crisp so no one’s going to be boiling in their plate, and the stands are full. Zoey’s not just fidgeting, she’s prancing too, ready to show off—and so is Gabe.

“Did you really kill a dragon?” Lady Sabrina asks from next to him, as they wait to process. The visor of her helmet is pushed back, so Gabe can see the sharpness of her look from those dark brown eyes.

Gabe pushes his own visor back. “Did you really root out a wyvern nest?” he retorts.

She laughs. Underneath her, her horse—a white mare—knickers. Lady Sabrina pats her. “I’m glad you’re here,” she tells him, her teeth bright against her brown skin. “It would be too easy, otherwise.”

“Hey now.” Prince Jamie’s dropped back to join them. “The rest of us are some competition, eh?”

Lady Sabrina grins, slow and challenging. “Are you?” she asks.

“It doesn’t much matter,” Lord Wilson puts in. He’s been to court a few times before this, and though he’s always spent most of his time at the castle, Gabe likes him as far as he’s seen him in the yard, and as far as Tyson—or JT, eavesdropping on Tyson—have said. “This is only the first round. It’s only to weed out those who aren’t serious.”

“Are you actually competing for the prince?” Lady Sabrina asks. It doesn’t sound malicious, but Gabe still bristles.

“What else would we be competing for?” That’s Lord Duchene, he of the serious face even now. “This is a competition for the prince’s hand.”

“For glory,” Lady Sabrina tells him, like it’s obvious.

Lord Duchene makes a disapproving face. “This is an old and honored tradition—”

“This is a spectacle,” Lady Sabrina corrects. “And I’m here to win it.”

Gabe straightens, puts his hand on his sword. “If you don’t—”

“Oh, calm down,” Lady Sabrina rolls his eyes. “It’s not that I wouldn’t like to marry the prince. He seems nice enough, and from what everyone says he won’t care about keeping me here. But—” she looks around. “Don’t you all want to _win_?”

It gets low buzzes from a few of the other competitors. Lord Duchene still looks disapproving, and Prince Jamie sympathetic but not pleased. He glances sidelong at Gabe—so does Lord Wilson, like they’re both expecting him to react.

Gabe wants to. He wants to tell the Lady that if she’d only settle for marrying Tyson, she should leave now—that Tyson shouldn’t marry someone who’s settling for him. Gabe gets the desire to win, to win glory and renown and prove his sword, but—not here. 

But he’s also just a champion, and Lady Sabrina’s family isn’t rich compared to someone like Lord Kerfoot but she still owns half the Western Marches. Gabe scowls, and edges Zoey a little farther away. He’ll just have to beat her, like he has to beat the rest of them.

The trumpets sound, and all of the suitors look up. “Okay!” yells the herald, from the front of a line. He already sounds irritated. “Everyone, into single file. We’ll go out, the king will talk, we’ll go back. Everyone who’s not tilting or on deck, clear out. Lords Kerfoot and Miranda?” The two men jerk to attention. “You’re up first, so go to your ends when you’re out. Everyone got it?” A chorus of yeses. “Good. Let’s go.” He signals to someone, and the trumpets sound again, and then they’re all thundering out into the lanes, lining up and turning to face the stands, the crowds of townspeople and farmers there, the platform at the center where the royal family is sitting.

Tyson’s got pride of place today, at the king’s right hand; the queen’s on his left and the princess is next to her brother. Tyson’s laughing at something the princess says, his face lit up like his laugh usually does. Gabe had remembered that light, for the year of his quest. But he looks up when the trumpets sound, and Gabe can see him look around until his eyes fix on Gabe—until he sees the scarf around Gabe’s arm. His cheeks go red.

“Hear ye, hear ye!” the herald yells. It carries over the rumble of the crowds, the cheers. “The suitors have arrived!” It gets a roar. Zoey prances a little, like she knows it’s for her; Gabe pats her side. He can still feel Tyson watching. JT leans down from where he’s standing behind him; Tyson makes a face and nods, laughing.

The herald waits until the roar has died down. “They have come from far and wide to compete for the hand of our Prince Tyson, Lord of the Avalanche—”

He has to stop again, for even louder cheers. Gabe can’t help his grin. The court may not have known what to do with him, but the people have always loved their feckless, merry prince, and even more so since the war. Tyson blushes, but he stands, raises a hand in acknowledgement—blows a few kisses, too, which gets even louder cheers. Tyson’s getting the beaming, squirming way he always gets whenever anyone praises him, the sort of look that has always made Gabe want to sit him down and tell him nice things until he can’t stand it anymore, but then the princess tugs him back down, and the cheers slowly fade away.

It's only once it’s quiet enough to be heard that the herald continues. “The tournament will proceed in four rounds, with each joust consisting of three lances each. In the event that both riders remain on horseback at the end of the three charges, our judges—” He waves to the panel sitting to the side of the royal platform, mostly the knight instructors. That’s probably an advantage—they like him. Except for Roy, he hates Gabe, so maybe that will actually be a problem.

“All those who make it into the semifinals will proceed to the next challenges, though only one will be declared the winner, the champion of the tournament, and crown their chosen the Ruler of Love and Beauty.” Everyone turns to look at Tyson—there’s no question who will be crowned today, even if any of them wanted otherwise. “Are there any objections, champions?”

No one speaks. The herald nods, and rolls up his parchment. “Then—let the tournament begin!”

The cheers usher the suitors out. Gabe throws a look over his shoulder at the royals one more time; Tyson’s watching the suitors go, but Gabe can’t tell who he’s looking at.

He dismounts Zoey a little away from the lists, along with the rest of the suitors, and hands his helmet to Josty. “Everything ready?”  Josty nods. Gabe looks over to his pavilion, but he doesn’t have time to disarm before he’s on deck. “Then let’s watch.”

“Yes sir!” Josty grins, and takes Zoey’s reins to lead her to the nearby trough.

The first few jousts are impressive—they’ve attracted a good crowd. Lord Kerfoot proves quickly that he didn’t buy his knighthood; he unseats the lady he’s riding against in three charges that ends in the lady hitting the ground. Lord Wilson takes two, but his second hit is hard enough that his opponent crashes over his gelding’s ass. He doesn’t move for a second; Lord Wilson dismounts to help him up, which makes Gabe nod approvingly. That’s a classy move. Tyson seems to like it too; he leans over to say something to the princess when he does it that makes the princess smile.

Lady Amanda Gabe doesn’t know much about, other than that she gained renown in the war but was injured and went home; he hasn’t heard of her since then. But now she sits calmly on her dark mare as she watches her opponent, a man larger than Gabe; when the horns sound he thunders at her and she unseats him with as neatly aimed a lance as Gabe’s ever seen. She raises a hand to the crowd, then leaves the field, just like that.

The next joust almost starts with an upset—Lord Duchene reels in his seat after a hard hit and almost goes down. But the next charge, Lord Duchene’s corrected whatever went wrong and he downs his opponent hard and fast, with some excellent riding. Gabe glances up; Tyson’s watching the lists now, and he’s smiling but even from this distance Gabe can see the focus under it—the sort of look he gets when he’s training, the look others outside the Guard don’t see often. Watching the jouster or the man, Gabe wonders. Or if he’s just evaluating the skill of the jousters, because Tyson’s no fool no matter how much he plays one. The wind catches in his hair, ruffles his curls.  

“We should go,” Josty pipes up, and Gabe nods.

“Good luck,” Nate tells him. Gabe grins. If Nate wants to see good jousting, he can see it.

“Who needs luck?” he asks, and grins at Nate’s eyeroll. “But thanks.”

Everything is simple, when he sets up for the joust. Zoey’s solid and eager underneath him; the sun is bright; his armor is a hot blanket around him; his lance is in his hand; his opponent is a dark form meters away. Everything else—the challenges, Tyson, the crowd, whatever the fuck Nate was talking about—that drops away, and when the trumpets sounds he spurs Zoey down the lane and lowers his lance.

It hits with a thud and the weight on his shied throws him back, but he knows how he connected and the feel of a body leaving the saddle and how a crowd roars—when he turns Zoey, it’s no surprise that Lady Kaya’s on the ground, sitting up slowly.

Gabe grins, and raises his lance to acknowledge the crowd—Captain, they’re yelling, and Champion, the Avalanche, and loudest of all, over and over—Dragonslayer, Dragonslayer. It echoes in his ears. Gabe turns Zoey to face the royal dais—it’s hard to see through the slits of his helmet, but he can see Tyson cheering too, his smile always visible.

Gabe salutes with the arm with Tyson’s favor wrapped around it, and trots off the field.

“Good job,” Josty grins, taking the lance and shield Gabe hands down to him. Gabe dismounts, taking off his helmet and shaking out his lance arm. “Unhorsing in one! Good way to start.”

“Start as you mean to go on,” Gabe agrees. He’s grinning too—nothing as good as a good joust to cheer him up. “Is Lady Kaya off yet?”

Josty cranes around Gabe. “Yeah, she’s still finishing.”

“Okay, I’ll go talk to her. You, go rub Zoey down so she’s ready for the next round.”

Josty hesitates. “Can I do it at the pavilion, and not the stables?”

Gabe cocks his head. “Why?”

“Because Sir Johnson’s been ranting about people who can’t take care of their horses and don’t deserve them, and I’d rather just avoid that if I can,” Josty admits cheerfully.

Gabe raises his eyebrows. “Are you planning on mistreating Zoey?”

“What? No. Of course not.” Josty sounds legitimately offended, which Gabe’s relieved to hear.

“Then you don’t have any reason to be afraid of EJ. Go on.”

He waves a pouting Josty away, then heads over to where Lady Kaya’s talking to her squire. She clearly doesn’t want to talk to him, but he shakes her hand anyway and tells her it was a good joust, because it was—she’s young and on the small side, which makes him a hard first opponent, even if she’s not ready to hear it. He lets her go, then goes back to his pavilion to disarm and catch as much of the rest of the jousts as he can.

He gets back to the lists in time to see Prince Jamie shatter his lance on his opponent’s shield. The opponent, a smallish man in dark armor, slams back so hard Gabe winces sympathetically, but he keeps his seat, which is impressive—Gabe’s been on the receiving end of Prince Jamie’s hits before and they aren’t fun.

Tyson’s catcalling with the rest of the crowd; Prince Jamie doesn’t say anything but his shoulders are set and determined as he accepts the lance from his squire. This time, his lance doesn’t shatter; the opponent hits the dirt hard.

“What did I miss?” Gabe asks, rejoining Nate.

“Lord Xavier won on judgment,” Nate tells him. Gabe doesn’t know him well—a lesser lord, provincial. “It was a close call—they got a unlucky break.” He’s watching Lady Sabrina line her horse up. “This is the last of this round.”

Gabe hums and braces his arms on the fence. He wants to watch this one. Lady Sabrina wins on judgment—she’s fast but has less power behind her hits. She laughs when she wins, claps the other woman on the shoulder before they ride off.

Gabe’s watching the field, which means he notices when Tyson turns to him, lifts his head. Gabe straightens—but Tyson just leans back, mutters something to JT, who nods.

Gabe waits—Tyson shrugs, gestures around at where he is in a clear gesture of ‘how am I supposed to get away from all this?’ Gabe shrugs back, smirks. Tyson scowls.

“They’re posting the next round,” Nate elbows him in the side, hard. Gabe turns to glare at him, but he really should check that, so he heads out.

///

“You’re against Lord Wilson,” Josty announces, coming into the tent. He has to edge around the crowd inside—basically all the Guard not on duty has decided to come by to either show their support or get out of the sun. Gabe’s bet is on the latter. “Up third. Also—Sir Compher is here.”

“Yes, I can see him,” Gabe drawls, and JT walks in behind Josty. “Is everything all right?”

“No, the job of watching the tournament sounds awful,” EJ puts in. Josty wasn’t joking about his disapproval of how some of the challengers have been treating their horses; he really is grumpy. Gabe’s going to need a list from him of who he’s mad at, if only so Tyson isn’t made a widower in a day after EJ snaps. Or maybe in case Gabe needs to weaponize that, if someone Tyson really doesn’t want to win wins.

“I can trade, if you need,” Mikko inserts, mock reluctant. “Because I’m such a good friend.”

JT rolls his eyes. “Yeah, well, I’ve come with a message from Tyson—he can’t get away,” he starts, and pulls a piece of parchment out of his jacket. “But he wanted me to tell you some things.”

“I think I need a Tyson-voice,” Nate demands. “Otherwise we won’t get the full thrust of it.”

“You have to mention how handsome Gabe is at least once, otherwise it’s not a message from Tyson,” EJ agrees.

Gabe throws the closest rag at EJ. “What is it?” He asks JT, who’s mainly been waiting patiently for them to stop.

“Well—” JT takes a breath, then launches into what is apparently play by play observations of the remaining competitors strengths, weaknesses, and strategies, like Gabe hadn’t been watching himself. Then it keeps going, and Gabe watches with a little interest to see when JT’s going to have to breathe.

“Wow, he was really bored, huh,” Gabe observes, when JT finally trails off. They’re generally good tips, of course, because Tyson’s good at this. But it’s still a lot.

JT nods with great feeling. “It’s been a long morning.” Gabe agrees. Though it should get better now that they’ve gotten down to the better jousters.

That proves true—Lord Duchene takes two lances to unseat Lord Xavier, and only manages it because of an unlucky step by Lord Xavier’s horse. Lady Sabrina unseats Lord Kerfoot in three with another unerringly aimed lance; he pops back up immediately, bows ruefully. Gabe himself goes three lances with Lord Wilson; they’re well-matched and it’s fun; they’ve tilted against each other before and know what to expect. When Gabe’s judged the winner, Lord Wilson nods in appreciation.

Gabe barely has time to catch the upset in the next round, which ends with Prince Jamie on the ground and Lady Amanda nodding to the crowd once, then to the royal pavilion, then riding away. When she takes her helmet off, at the other end of the lists, she’s not even smiling, though she looks satisfied.

The next round comes quicker; Gabe barely has time to get some ale and some food before he’s mounting Zoey again, facing down Lady Sabrina. He has her number by now, though; she’s good but her strategy has holes in it, and he sets his feet and angles his lance and in two tilts, she’s fallen.

She bounces back up, cursing him cheerfully as Gabe pulls Zoey around. The Dragonslayer cheers are still in the air, nearly drowning her out. Gabe salutes her, and she glares, then grabs her horse’s reins. Gabe turns to look at the royal family—Tyson’s grinning, clapping wildly. One more round, he thinks. He can do this. He’s won tournaments many times before.

He doesn’t bother even disarming this time, just waits to see the results of the next joust. Lady Amanda’s rolled over her past opponents with very little trouble, even Prince Jamie; if Gabe were betting, he’d put his money on her. Lord Duchene is a solid jouster, but Lady Amanda’s quickly become a favorite.

Except it’s lucky Gabe didn’t bet, because in three tilts Lady Amanda falls, to gasps of the crowd. Even Lord Duchene looks a little surprised, when he pushes up his visor; he’s starting to dismount when she pushes herself up to sitting, nodding.

“Well done,” she tells him, and turns her back with that.

Lord Duchene looks a little confused and put out—it’s a little rude, perhaps—but he salutes the royals, then goes back to the end of the lists.

Gabe studies him. He’s not an overly large man, even in his armor, but he’s solid, and his jousting has been too—he’s fast for his size and aggressive.

They set up. Zoey’s getting tired by now, but Gabe pats her on the flank, murmurs soothingly to her. Only three more rides, one way or another, and then she can rest.

“Good?” Josty asks, handing him up his lance. Gabe shakes out his arms, then takes it.

“Good,” he agrees. He is. He feels set—he feels ready. The crowd is quieter now, hushed with anticipation; on the dais, Gabe can feel Tyson’s eyes on him. He touches the favor, though he can’t feel it through the steel of his armor. On the other side of the lists, Lord Duchene is saying something quietly, his head bowed and a necklace raised to his lips.

Gabe can beat him. Gabe’s won tournaments. Gabe’s slain a dragon. Gabe’s the best knight of the realm, and he’s proved it before, and he will prove it again here. He can do this. He can win this, and then crown Tyson King of Love and Beauty and put the flower crown on his head, and sit with him at the banquet and hear Tyson’s commentary on the tournament and laugh at his pout as Gabe teases him about his sweet tooth.

Gabe pats Zoey again, and flips his visor down. Josty steps away.

The trumpets sound. Zoey surges into motion. Duchene is a blur across the way, then closer, and Gabe lowers his lance and adjusts his seat and—

The force of Duchene’s blow drives him back in the saddle, but he doesn’t fall. Duchene doesn’t either; he’s turning his horse and nodding to Gabe as he passes him on their way back to their sides. Gabe nods back. That was a solid hit.

Another blast of trumpets. They charge—Gabe can feel his lance hit, but it slides off to the right, throwing Gabe off balance as Lord Duchene’s lance hits his shield, but he throws himself to the other sides and Zoey scrambles, and Gabe stays in the saddle.

They reset. Gabe doesn’t look at Tyson. One more lance, then judgment.

Zoey’s tail twitches, and it’s starting to get hot under the steel plate. He can smell the sweat, his and Zoey’s both, and the smell of dust and fat from the fried foods the stalls are selling. One more lance.

Trumpets. A charge. Gabe watches Duchene, then readjusts in the last second, taking the risk—he drives his lance low and angled upwards, and he can feel Duchene’s shield go back but then his lance hits Gabe’s shield and Gabe’s too high in the saddle already and he can feel it an instant before he goes over Zoey’s flank.

The world goes bright as he hits the ground, the breath driven out of him by the force of his fall. His ears are ringing—from his helmet, from the noise of the crowd, cheers and boos and gasps. He—fuck. Fucking hell, he _lost_.

He levers himself up to sitting. Josty’s rushed onto the field to grab Zoey, who’s well trained enough that she stopped when Gabe fell. Lord Duchene has pulled his horse around, is watching Gabe—and there, up in the crowds, Tyson is on his feet.

Gabe takes a breath. He knows how to do this. It’s been a while since he’s had to, but he knows how. He knows what he has to do. No one respects a knight who throws a fit.

He stands, making sure not to shake, and bows to Lord Duchene, then to the royal pavilion. The King is pulling Tyson back down, the princess’s hand on his other arm; Tyson is saying something to him that looks argumentative. It probably is. It always is. It—

“All right?” Josty asks, bringing Zoey back around. “Need help?”

“No,” Gabe snaps. He lost, he doesn’t need help. Part of honor is knowing how to lose. “I’m fine. Come on.” He doesn’t want to hear Lord Duchene declared winner. He definitely doesn’t want to see him crown Tyson. Gabe’s Tyson’s champion, he doesn’t want to see any of this.

Gabe walks with as much dignity as is possible in a full set of plate mail to the other end of the lists, where a full half of the Guard seems to be waiting for him. But they all know him well enough to leave him alone as he heads back to his pavilion. Gabe may know the things honor demand he do when he’s lost, but he doesn’t have to like it.   

Josty peels off to take care of Zoey, so Gabe stalks back to the pavilion alone. He throws his helmet onto the rack, curses when it falls. Damn everything. He was supposed to win. He had to win, that was how the story went. That was what champions did, they won, for their lord. That’s what they were for. What will the people say now, about him? Slayed a dragon but lost his prince’s tournament? What will Tyson say?

And Josty’s not here so he can’t even get his damned gauntlets off. What use is—

“See this is why you don’t go sulk and scare everyone away.”

Gabe turns. Tyson’s standing in the doorway, looking amused. Gabe scowls. Of all the people he doesn’t want to see, Tyson may be the worst of it. He doesn’t want to know how he let Tyson down.

“I didn’t scare anyone.”

“Uh-huh. Your thunder dragon face is totally not scary at all, nuh-uh.” Tyson rolls his eyes. “Come on.” He steps in, lets the flap fall shut behind him. There’s still plenty of light in the tent, plenty of room, but it somehow feels smaller. 

“I just needed space,” Gabe mutters.

“I figured.” Tyson doesn’t seem to think about if that space includes him, which is fair. It never really has. “I sort of expected you to draw your sword on the field, honestly.”

“I wouldn’t!”

“That would have been great,” Tyson goes on, sounding a little dreamy. “I wonder what father would have done. Probably let you fight. I mean, extremely unsafe and all, but that would have been a _show_.”

Gabe rolls his eyes. “Stop fantasizing.”

“But it’s such a nice fantasy,” Tyson retorts. “So many swords.” He smirks. “Of so many different kinds.”

Gabe gives an even bigger eye roll, but his lips are twitching despite themselves. “How are you even here? Don’t you have to be—crowned?” He spits out the last word despite himself.

Tyson waves a hand, dismissing that. “Yeah, that’s done. Duchene gave it to me, I put it on, said something about how honored I was like anyone had a choice about who to crown, he said some shit about it being his honor, father declared the ball tonight, yada yada yada. Even I can manage that ceremony without putting my foot in my mouth. Let’s get you out of that armor, eh?”

“A ball?” Gabe asks. Tyson’s moving forward, picking up his hand, tugging off one gauntlet. Gabe lets him, mainly out of instinct and because he really wants his gauntlet off.

“Yeah, a ball, the whole shebang. Because why not waste more money while we’re at it?”

“Don’t lie, you love a party,” Gabe retorts. Tyson sets the gauntlet aside, starts on his other one.  Gabe flexes his hand. His knuckles are a little bruised.

“Yeah, but not ones where everyone’s watching me and trying to flatter me and whatever.” He pulls off of the other gauntlet, sets it aside too. For a second, his hands brush against Gabe’s, warm and calloused. Then he’s behind Gabe, reaching to the back of his head to remove his gorget. His fingers are brushing against the nape of Gabe’s neck; his face is close enough that Gabe can feel his breath. Gabe swallows. Forces a smile.

“You love people flattering you too.”

“Only when I can pretend they mean it. And it’s going to be boring, I know it.” Gabe also knows that Tyson’s never met a boring party he can’t make more interesting. “And I don’t think Duchene’s going to be a great conversationalist. I mean, maybe I’m wrong, but he’s just got that air.”

Tyson sets the gorget aside, comes back around to Gabe’s front to undo the ties on his shoulders. His head is ducked a little, as he works the leather straps; Gabe can just see the top of his head, his shoulders. If he stepped away, though, Gabe knows the look of concentration he’d see, his teeth digging into his lower lip, one of the few habits Gabe’s not sure if Tyson knows is flirtatious or not.

“I’m sorry,” he gets out. He has to say it. It’s something to say. “That I couldn’t win.”

“You got to the next round, that’s what matters.” One shoulder down, Tyson moves to the other. Gabe still can’t feel his hands through the chainmail underneath the plate, but he knows what Tyson’s hands would feel like—strong and clever. He fixes his gaze somewhere over Tyson’s head, at the cloth door of the tent.

“I lost,” Gabe says. It’s nothing more than the truth. “I was supposed to fight in your honor, and I lost.”

Tyson shrugs, and pulls the other shoulder away. Arms now. Gabe can handle Tyson undoing his arms. “Well, has Duchene ever slayed a dragon? I don’t think so.”

Gabe laughs despite himself. “I thought you said that wasn’t a big deal.”

Tyson snorts. “I mean I don’t think it is, but according to everyone who can’t shut up about it, other people think it’s a big deal. The word legend has been thrown around. I mean, no one else here’s done that. No one else could.” He pauses, then tilts his head. “Well, Nate, but I’ve got to say that.”

Gabe chuckles again. Tyson’s on his tiptoes now to undo the ties at his shoulders for his breast plate, leaning in close to Gabe, and Gabe knows there’s a world outside, knows that the tent isn’t keeping out any noises, but he can’t hear anything else. Can’t feel anything else but Tyson, long clever fingers at his neck, his solid body pressed close. He keeps staring over Tyson’s shoulder. If he looks down…

“You shouldn’t be doing this.” His voice is hoarse.

Tyson snorts. “I didn’t talk to you the whole tournament, that counts as not-cheating enough.”

“My armor,” Gabe corrects. He’s not sure he’s breathing. “It’s—you’re the prince.”

“Yeah, and you have armor on and need it off, so I’m not seeing the problem.” Tyson looks up, and—that’s the problem. The problem is Tyson close and warm and smiling up at him like Gabe didn’t just lose the tournament for him. The problem is that Tyson doesn’t see a problem in what he’s doing, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one. Gabe knows what people would say, if they saw the prince here. “I’ve played squire before, Gabe. Don’t be an idiot. I put my armor on one greave at a time, same as you.”

Damn, greaves. Tyson might have to kneel to get those off his shins.

Gabe swallows again. “Don’t, your highness,” he says, trying to be firm. Tyson’s face goes through too many expressions to catch one, but then he pauses. Smiles something that’s a little off, somehow.

“Wow a title,” he says, mocking, but he steps back, taking the breastplate with him. He turns to set it down, the picks something up off the rack—his scarf, his favor. “I must really be in trouble. Heaven forbid I do anything for myself. Or for my champion. What sort of prince would do that?”

“Tys.” Gabe sighs. He can think again now, though; Tyson’s a step away. “That’s not what I meant.”

“You’re the only one who didn’t, then,” Tyson mutters. “I still think I should have dueled the winner. Just to see.”

Gabe grins. “The king didn’t let you?” Now that most of his armor’s off, he can shimmy out of the chainmail tunic on his own; it’s heavy but simple enough. If it’s a little awkward to do, well, Gabe’s looked awkward in front of Tyson before. It doesn’t matter.

 “He still thinks it would be bad for someone’s dignity, no matter who—um. Who won.” Tyson snorts as Gabe emerges from the chain mail, a little rumpled but not much worse for wear. Despite his tone, Tyson’s blinking at Gabe, big-eyed. The tent still feels too small, even when Tyson’s not so close. “Joke’s on him, though, everyone knows I don’t have any dignity.”

“You have dignity,” Gabe retorts. His hand is on his belt, where his sword would be. “As long as I’m around, you do.”

Tyson’s face does that thing again, where it’s too expressive to read any one emotion, but then he smiles takes a step forward again, pats Gabe’s chest. Tucks the scarf into Gabe’s collar. “That’s why you’re my champion.”

“Because I’ll defend my prince’s honor?”

“Because you think I have any to defend. Even though it’s ridiculous and archaic and you shouldn’t risk injury for me.” Tyson’s going a little red. Gabe feels too hot too, even out of his armor. Like it’s coming from Tyson, who’s altogether too close again. “It’s not worth it.”

“It’s always—”

“Sorry it took me so long, I—”

“Wait, no, don’t—”

Gabe jerks away from Tyson as Tyson turns to look at where Josty’s stumbled into the tent, JT’s hand still on his arm.

For a second, there’s silence.

Then, “Sorry,” JT and Josty say in unison. They look at each other, then JT starts.

“Sorry, I tried to stop him.” he shoots a glare at Josty.

“I just wanted to make sure Gabe got out of his armor,” Josty mutters, but he’s looking around the tent bright-eyed and curious. “I didn’t realize someone else would be helping him.”

“Yes, I’m scoping out your job,” Tyson tells Josty. He’s grinning, easy, but there’s more room before Gabe and Tyson then there had been before the squires burst in. “Screw being a prince, want to trade?”

“Can I marry the person who wins the tournament?” Josty replies. He’s clearly getting the hang of the ‘not humoring Tyson’s bullshit just because he’s a prince’ tendency of the Guard.

“As long as it’s not Gabe,” Tyson informs him. “He’s mine.”

Gabe closes his eyes.

“Oh, for sure,” Josty agrees. “I would never take Gabe from you.”

“Gabe is marrying no one,” Gabe opens his eyes and interrupts, because this feels like it could spiral. “Gabe would also like to finish getting his armor off, please.”

“I’ll leave you to it.” Tyson nods to Josty, then looks back at Gabe. “Ball. Tonight. I’ll see you there.”

Gabe makes a face. He doesn’t have any objection to balls per se, but he doesn’t think he wants to sit around and watch Lord Duchene chat with Tyson all night. Or any of the other suitors. But especially the ones who beat him. He definitely doesn’t want to see the nobility watching him, any admiration from the dragon snuffed out by his loss. "I’m tired, I should get some—”

 “If you don’t I’m substituting JT in as my new champion,” Tyson informs him.

“Please come,” JT pipes in, with the heartfelt sigh of someone who’s been dealing with a bored Tyson all day. “ _Please_.”

Tyson sticks his tongue out at JT, then smiles at Gabe, excited and wheedling and pink-cheeked. “Tonight?”

Gabe sighs. He can put off his bad mood a little longer. “Tonight,” he agrees, and Tyson’s smile probably makes it worth it.


	3. For Duty

“He got you too?” Nate asks, taking the seat next to Gabe. He’s in his finest tunic, red and silver embroidery that Tyson got him for his last birthday.

Gabe grunts, nods. He really doesn’t want to be here. He wants to nursing an ale in his rooms, preferably somewhere where he can throw things, and not somewhere where he has to sit around and eat admittedly good food the likes of which he hasn’t had since the least feast he was at and watch Tyson at the head table, munching on some lamb as Lord Duchene talks and everyone else watches and judges. Lord Duchene has been talking a lot, and Tyson not much, Gabe thinks, which means Tyson probably is bored. He’s never met anyone Tyson can’t talk over if he’s excited. Gabe wants Tyson to be having a good time, because he only just wants Tyson to be happy, but…there’s something in him that’s glad that Lord Duchene isn’t giving him that good time.

“I was ordered to attend,” Gabe mutters. Nate laughs, and steals Gabe’s goblet with his good hand.

“No you weren’t. Tyson never orders you to do anything.”

Gabe shrugs. “It was strongly suggested.”

“Yeah, I don’t think he knows how to do that either,” Nate tells Gabe, rolling his eyes. “Try again.”

“Fine. He asked,” Gabe admits. “But that’s what we’re here for, aren’t we? To do what the prince wants.”

Nate snorts again. “Because you’ve never disobeyed Tyson’s orders before,” he says, like that’s ridiculous. Gabe elbows him.

“Only when it’s for his own good,” he informs Nate. Sometimes Tyson gets drunk and has bad ideas; sometimes he’s sober and has bad ideas. Sometimes he just needs to be argued with because he gets smug otherwise, and when he’s flustered he goes pink and pouty and it’s fun. But Gabe’s never disobeyed a real order. Other than ones that are going to get Tyson killed.

“Yeah, that’s because he doesn’t give you orders.” Nate shrugs. “Or maybe he doesn’t give you orders because of it, who knows. Do you have more bread?”

Gabe rolls his eyes and passes it over. The feast is getting to the point where most people are finished eating and starting to mingle; any moment now the tables in the center of the room will be starting to be cleared for dancing. That’s where the rest of his table went, anyway—he can see Josty and JT talking with some of the other squires; EJ’s accosted the Master of the Horse and that means they’re lost for good; Mikko and Z and Sven seem to be negotiating with the musicians, which bodes very badly indeed but Gabe decides not to deal with. He didn’t want to be here, he doesn’t have to handle it. And he hasn’t technically picked his duties as Captain back up.

Of course, he hasn’t pointed it out to Nate yet either, whose responsibility it still is. He wants to see what’s going to happen.

“You’re late, anyway,” Gabe tells him. “Did you try to get out of it?”

“I was working on rosters.” Nate steals more bread, as sure enough, the servants start to clear the center tables. “I’m very ready to give that back to you.”

“I don’t know, I heard you’ve been doing well. Maybe I’ll delegate.” At Nate’s face, Gabe bursts into laughter. “Come on, it’s not that bad.” He flags down a servant to take the flagon of ale he’s holding. If Gabe has to be here, he is definitely drinking. The next challenge isn’t getting announced until the next afternoon, he has time to be hungover.

“I’d rather just be the one leading the charge.” Nate grins. “Or slaying dragons.”

“Tell you what, next time, you can take the dragon.”

“Yeah, sure, you’re definitely going to let me go off and do the quest for glory,” Nate retorts, laughing. “One day you’re going to do enough to get yourself landed. Then what will you do?”

Laughter—Tyson’s carries, it always does. Gabe looks despite himself up at the high table. Tyson’s flush is the sort of flush he gets when he’s been drinking, and Lord Duchene must have said something funny because he is laughing now, real and bright and infectious.

Gabe focuses back on Nate. “You know I’d never leave the Guard,” he says, grabbing Nate’s head so he can put him in a headlock as roughly as he can while still not jostling his arm. “You would go to the dogs in a week.”

“We survived a whole year!” Nate protests, trying to get away. “And we all know what you’d do in a second if you were a lord.”

“And what’s that?” Gabe asks. He’s not even sure. It’s been there, in the back of his mind, since he first came to court as a boy and saw what it meant to be a lord, to hold real power, but he doesn’t think about it much. The war and the dragon have taken up most of his thoughts recently, anyway.

Nate stops struggling, looks up at him. “Seriously?” he asks, like Gabe’s being stupid on purpose.

Tyson laughs again. Gabe doesn’t look, this time. “Seriously,” he says, and lets Nate go. It’s a fun dream, winning a fiefdom by his sword, but everyone knows how rare that is. There aren’t fiefdoms just out there waiting to be handed off. Gabe’s not holding his breath for it, anyway. He’s a knight, and he’ll live a knight and die a knight—the best knight, ideally—and consider it an honorable life well lived.

“Are you done, now?” Gabe looks up—Lady Sabrina slides into place across from him, Lord Wilson next to her and Lady Amanda a quiet shadow behind her. “Or can I have next? I have to prove I can beat you in something.”

“I—” Gabe looks over at Nate in confusion; Nate shrugs. Gabe can definitely see the eyeballing they’re getting from the table of nobles right below the high table, the whispers that spread there. Tyson sitting among the knights is a cause for a sneer but nothing unusual, anymore; this is new. “You have your seats, my lady, you shouldn’t—”

“I think once you’ve knocked us off our horses we can do away with the formalities,” Lord Wilson tells him, smiling wryly.

“Your squire seems to be doing well at it,” Lady Amanda adds. Gabe looks over—somehow Josty and JT have incorporated Lord Kerfoot into their conversation.

Gabe turns back to her. “I didn’t knock you off your horse,” he points out. She smiles, slow and satisfied.

“No, you didn’t,” she agrees. She plucks a flagon off of a passing servant’s tray. “And you won’t.”

“Not until you explain to me what you did on the second pass with me,” Lady Sabrina throws in. “How’d you get me there?”

They should leave, but it’s not like Gabe can order them to go. And—it’s easier, to chat with them; they’re lords and ladies but they can all talk about jousting—and then, because Lady Sabrina asks, about the dragon. And then the wyverns, and Lord Wilson had a run in with a wild gryphon that gave him a scar his rolls up his sleeve to show.

“Oh, so this is where the cool kids are.” Gabe doesn’t need to look to adjust; Tyson’s suddenly between him and Nate, filling the space like it’s always been left for him. “Should have known. Gabe always attracts the best looking people in the room.” He grins at everyone around them indiscriminately, then up at Gabe. “It’s some sort of attractive people magnetism; I’ve never figured it out.”

“Your highness.” Lord Wilson does as good of a bow as he can sitting. Lady Sabrina and Lady Amanda do the same, a beat later.

Tyson waves a hand. “Please don’t. I’ve just spent the last hour being your highnessed. It always feels like I’m being mocked. Or in trouble.” He leans forward, over the table, like he’s telling a secret. It’s gets him dangerously close to a candle. “Gabe only ever your highnesses me when I’m in trouble.”

“That isn’t true,” Gabe informs him, and grabs his collar to tug him back to safety. “Your highness,” he adds, pointedly.

“Fine, Sir Landeskog,” Tyson retorts, drawing out the name. It doesn’t sound like Gabe’s in trouble at all, except for how it does. “I’ll just be calling you that from now on. See how you like it.” He wrinkles his nose up at Gabe, then turns to the table. “So, what were we talking about? Don’t let me interrupt.”

“Lady Amanda was just going to tell us about her adventures,” Lady Sabrina says. She shifts excitedly in her seat. “What’s the worst? I’ve heard you took out an entire nest of bandits by yourself.”

“There were a lot more people than me,” Lady Amanda says, smiling a little. She reaches up to touch the back of her neck, in something like a tic. “It’s always a group effort.”

“It wasn’t a group effort in the war,” Lady Sabrina goes on. She slides a little closer on the bench to Lady Amanda, intent and excited. Gabe would bet his months’ pay that she didn’t fight in the war. She definitely doesn’t notice the Lady Amanda is going white. “It was just you when you held the pass—”

“No, see, you always say it’s a group effort,” Tyson interrupts loudly. “That way no one gets jealous. Like, I always say it was a group effort to hunt down the Boar of Buelt, but really…” he gestures to himself. “All me. I just have to pander to the rest of the Guard.”

Gabe snorts. “Right, all you. You hate hunting.”

“Don’t spill all my secrets, Gabriel,” Tyson tells him, grinning. “Anyway, what did you contribute? Attractiveness? I could have brought Barbs along and gotten almost as good an effect.”

“And what did you add?” Gabe retorts. “You—” he cuts himself off, looking around. This is an argument for the Guard, where everyone accepts how casually they treat the prince.

Tyson rolls his eyes. “Don’t stop insulting me now on their account.” He waves his hand at the nobles at their table, who are all watching them now—Lord Wilson has an amused smile on, Lady Sabrina looks intrigued, and Lady Amanda’s color is back, though she’s not quite smiling. “If they’re going to marry me they should understand that not even my knights want to take me anywhere.”

“That’s not true,” Gabe protests, as Lord Wilson laughs. “You know we always want you with us, your highness.”

Tyson glances up at him, eyes dancing through his lashes. “Always?” he asks, and there’s something in it that’s more than just a joke.

Gabe hesitates. He wants Tyson with the Guard more than he should—he knows Tyson has other duties, but it’s never as much fun as it was when Tyson’s there—but also…he thinks about the war. About those long nights, about Tyson slumped in a chair, looking like all his energy was gone, like even his cheer couldn’t endure. Gabe would have given anything for him not to have been with them, then. Even if it might have left Gabe with no energy to go on at all.

“See, that’s definitely a lie,” Tyson goes on, and turns away from Gabe. “Right, Nate?”

“I never want you anywhere near me,” Nate agrees easily, which gets a laugh. Gabe thinks he’s the only one who notices the glance Nate gives him, incredulous.  

The music starts with a jaunty scratch of a viol, and Tyson jumps up. “Excellent, dancing.” He reaches out his hand, and for a second, Gabe thinks—but then he extends it to Lady Amanda. “Would you do me the honor, my lady?”

She eyes him gravely. “I haven’t danced in years.”

“According to most people, my dancing always looks like I haven’t danced in years, so we’ll match,” Tyson tells her cheerfully. Her lips twitch, of course. Gabe doesn’t know anyone who can resist Tyson at his most charming, not even the nobles who like to sneer at him.

“Very well,” she agrees, and takes his hand, and lets him lead her to the open floor. As soon as he stands up, other couples fill in the rest of the set, as if he summoned them like magic.

“Well that’s a sign of favor,” Lady Sabrina hums, as Tyson bows to the lady.

Lord Wilson shakes his head silently, glancing at Gabe and Nate with a smile—he clearly gets it in a way Lady Sabrina doesn’t. “I’m sure,” he agrees.

“Ah, well.” She turns back to the rest of the table. “So tell me about the dragon.”

The rest of the ball swirls around Gabe—he chats with Lady Sabrina and Lord Wilson for a while, and the rest of the Guard joins them then moves away, dancing or talking or drinking. Gabe gets a glance of Josty sitting with JT and Lord Kerfoot at a table across the hall, apparently discussing something with great animation; Prince Jamie is talking with his own retinue, more animated than Gabe usually sees him outside the sparring ring. Tyson barely leaves the dance floor—he moves from Lady Amanda to Lord Xavier to Lord Kerfoot to another lady of the court to his sister to Prince Benn to Lord Wilson to Lady Sabrina, laughing and merry. Gabe tries not to pay attention, tries to keep his attention on his conversation with the other knights, but—the prince is always the center, and Gabe can’t help but watch.

Gabe would usually be dancing too, with the other knights at least, but he’s still in enough of a mood not to, especially when he watches Lord Duchene claim Tyson for a dance. He’s not an especially good dancer, Gabe thinks grumpily. Gabe’s definitely a better dancer than him.

He drinks more ale to convince himself of that. It seems like the right strategy.

 “Gabe, save me.” Tyson throws himself down onto the bench next to Gabe, after the next dance ends. He’s even more flushed than he was, from dancing or mead or both, and his hair is messy from the sweat of dancing, and he’s a mess and Gabe missed this most of all, somehow, on his year away; Tyson smiling at him warm and teasing and fond.

“That’s what a champion’s here for,” Gabe agrees, shoving companionably at his shoulder. “From who?”

“Lord Duchene,” Tyson says, groaning and dropping his head onto Gabe’s shoulder.

“What?” Gabe half-rises from the bench. “Did he—”

“No, Gabe, sit down.” Tyson tugs him back down, rolling his eyes. “And if he had done anything, I could have taken care of it myself.”

“So could I,” Gabe mutters. He’d feel better challenging Lord Duchene to a duel, he thinks. He could beat him with a sword.

“Yes, you’d defend me very well.” Tyson pats in his general direction, which ends up on his thigh. “But no. He’s just so boring. Which isn’t his fault, I guess, but he spent all of dinner talking about faith and like, some monastery he goes to on his lands? And how the abbot there gives great sermons? And then dancing he tried to keep talking about that and it’s hard to talk while dancing but he managed it, Gabe. He managed it.” Tyson blinks big eyes up at him, like being bored is the most devastating thing that could happen to him. “Don’t let me be bored to death, Gabe. You have to beat him. I can’t marry him.”

“Oh I’ll beat him,” Gabe promises, glaring indiscriminately at the swirls of dancers. Two more challenges. This one didn’t even really matter, it was just a qualifier. “You won’t be marrying anyone.”

“Good.” Tyson grins, and Gabe is drunk enough that he lets himself think about how good a smile it is. “Dance with me.”

“What?” Gabe swallows. “Tys, we shouldn’t—”

“I’ve danced with all the other suitors, it’s only proper I dance with you,” Tyson informs him, drawling out the word proper like he’s imitating Gabe. “And you’d save me from dancing with Lord Duchene again, so two good honorable reasons.”

Gabe shouldn’t. But he’s drunk and stupid, and “Well. If it’s honorable,” Gabe allows, and lets Tyson pull him to his feet, follows him over to the floor, where they take their places in the set.

It’s not the first time they’ve danced together, obviously. Tyson insists all his knights know how to dance, but not all of them come to the Guard knowing—or knowing up to Tyson’s standards, which are surprisingly exacting—and somehow it always ends up being Tyson and Gabe demonstrating, in a circle of all their friends. And sometimes even at feasts, Tyson will finagle dances with the Guard, pleading boredom or wanting them to have a good time or simply doing his Tyson thing and ignoring everyone else he should be dancing with to stay with his friends.

But maybe Gabe drunk more than he thought, because—their hands brush as they meet in the center of the line, and it feels like the sear of dragon flame, and Gabe can see Tyson swallow. They circle, turn, bow; bow to the other pair who make up the set; they turn back to each other and the torchlight is flickering over Tyson’s face, until he’s just eyes and the curl falling over his forehead and his red lips smiling at Gabe, like a dream—like the dream Gabe carried with him for a year, why he had to slay the dragon.

And then their hands connect again, curl in to hold, and it doesn’t feel honorable at all, their palms against each other, the grip of Tyson’s fingers, the heat of his skin. The darkness of his gaze, as they circle, like the rest of the world has dropped away—like even the other couple they’re dancing with have disappeared, and Gabe can’t look anywhere else, can’t feel anything other than the place their hands touch.

The music ends with a flourish. They stop. Tyson’s panting, like he just fought a full match, though there’s no way he’s winded; his mouth is open like it fell that way and he forgot to close it. For a second, he just looks like a man—like Gabe’s friend, like the man Gabe—

And then he moves, and the light catches on the circlet in his hair, on the gold of the chain around his neck, the sapphire at its center, and Gabe swallows, and steps away.

Tyson’s hand remains raised for a split-second, then it falls.

“Your highness,” Gabe says, bowing.

“Gabe—” Tyson starts, his voice warm and a little exasperated. “Come on, don’t—”

“You have other guests, your highness,” Gabe reminds. Himself, Tyson. He’s not sure.

Tyson looks a little like he does whenever he’s going to argue with Gabe—but then he smiles, lopsided and wry. “I do,” he agrees. He bows too, somehow insolent. “I guess you don’t want to dance again? You could still save me from other boring dancers.”

Gabe looks at him again. Swallows. “No,” he says. “No, you should dance with someone more fitting.”

“Ugh.” Tyson wrinkles his nose. “What if I don’t like people who fit? What if I want people who don’t quite fit?”

Gabe snorts. Tyson grins a beat later, flushing. “I’m sticking with it,” he decides, laughing. “The point stands. The people you want me to dance with only do it because they think they should.”

“Still.” Gabe takes another step back. “You should dance with one of them. You can’t dislike all of them.”

“You’d be surprised,” Tyson mutters darkly. “Fine, I won’t dance. But we should see if we can get EJ to, because that’s always hysterical. Is he back at the table? Let’s go find him.”

He heads back towards the Guard’s table, and Gabe was going there anyway, so it’s not following Tyson as much as going in the same direction when they both end up at the table with the rest of the Guard, who are definitely a lot more drunk than the last time Gabe saw them.

“You have fun on your dance?” Mikko asks, waggling his eyebrows. Or trying too; he hasn’t quite gotten the trick of it so it looks more like he’s widening his eyes weirdly. “It seemed very intimate.”

EJ cuts off any response they might have had by announcing, very huffily, “You aren’t allowed to marry Lord Xavier.”

“He won’t,” Gabe tells him.

“Why not?” Tyson asks.

“He just said that his horses were better than Avalanche horses,” EJ declares, clearly expecting it to land with as much devastation as it had apparently hit him with. When no one reacts properly, EJ gapes. “That’s an affront to our honor! To our core as a land and as knights! Gabe, you have to beat him.”

“Don’t worry.” Tyson reaches over to pat EJ on the arm. “If I do end up marrying him, I’ll be sure to put him in charge of all horse-buying related decisions.”

“The day you do that is the day I leave,” EJ tells him very seriously, shoving off Tyson’s arm. Tyson falls back against Gabe’s side, snorting to him. “It’s going to be me or him, Barrie.”

“I mean….do you bring the best horses?” Tyson asks, and EJ makes a noise like a sheep being sheared as the rest of the table devolves into laughter, Tyson grinning smugly at all of them and EJ scowling. Gabe wishes it could stay like this forever—all his men, right here, having fun. He wishes he could forget that soon, Tyson will go back up to the high table, away from anywhere Gabe can follow. Forget that he can still feel eyes on him, most of which aren’t approving.

“Gabriel, stop sulking and tell EJ that I have to make the best strategic decision and that might mean letting him go,” Tyson demands, and Gabe shakes his head to clear it, then slower and more ruefully at EJ.

“Sometimes the good of the few must be sacrificed,” he agrees solemnly. EJ glares.

“I’m going to sacrifice you,” he tells Tyson. “See how you like it.”

“That’s treason,” Nate points out. “I think even saying that is treason.”

“Yeah, someone behead him,” Tyson agrees. “Gabe, you’re my champion. Fight him.”

“I’m not dueling EJ because you’re an idiot,” Gabe tells Tyson, rolling his eyes but smiling like he always does, around Tyson. For now, at least, he has this.

///

Gabe’s woken up by a very insistent knocking on his door.

“What?” he snaps, and rolls out of bed to open it. He isn’t actually hungover, but he feels like he should be. He yanks open the door to see JT there, looking no more pleased than Gabe. “What do you want?”

“You’re wanted at the castle,” JT tells him, grumpily.

Gabe stares. “Why?” he asks. The announcement of the second challenge isn’t until the afternoon, and judging by where the sun is, it’s nowhere near that time yet.

“Because you’re going to Council with Tyson, come on, do you have something to wear?”

“Of course I have something to wear,” Gabe informs him. Then, “Why am I going? That’s his squire’s job. Or yours.”

JT scowls. “Well, now you’re his champion, so you get to do it, but I still have to wake up for it, so congratulations. Get ready, it’s soon.”

Gabe’s still waking up, but—“You know I’m not trying to take your place, right?” he asks.

JT rolls his eyes. “Yes, I really don’t think you want to be Tyson’s squire,” he agrees, stressing the last word. “Can you please get ready? The sooner you do the sooner I can get back to sleep.”

“Yes, fine.” Gabe starts looking through his chest to find something fitting to wear to council. Though—he’s only been at the council twice, one when the Guard was sent to war, and once before he left on his quest. Both times he’d been in his own right, not as Tyson’s guard; both times he’d just worn armor. This isn’t that, he thinks.

He finds a fitting tunic and puts on his lightest mail over it, then finds his sword. “Can you drill with Josty this morning?” Gabe asks, as he chooses between knives. “He should get some work in.”

“Gabe—”

“ _Sir_ Compher,” Gabe says, and JT swallows his groan. He doesn’t look too displeased about it anyway.

Gabe gets to the council chamber on time, according to JT, but Tyson is waiting for him, pacing a little. He stops when he sees Gabe.

“Good, you’re here, and you look—yeah, good.” He glances up and down at Gabe. Gabe rolls out his shoulders. “Sorry about this, I didn’t want to make you suffer through this but father said I should come today and I think it’s because he wants to show you off, dragonslayer and all that, so—here we are. Good?”

Gabe nods. Tyson takes a breath, sets his shoulders. He looks a little like he’s going to war. Gabe holds in a smile, and follows him in.

Two hours later, he gets what Tyson meant. After the king greeted everyone and sat down between his children then spent half an hour discussing the latest fashion, they’ve gone from a report on the granaries, to the armories, to the exchequer, to land dispute between some nobles in Lady Swinton’s fief, to the rise of bandits stealing tax revenues in the north, to a discussion of Lord Masterly’s trade privileges on the sea. While Gabe definitely didn’t know that the purse was this empty, there’s more talk of percentages than he’s ever heard before. Tyson, sitting at the table, has clearly lost focus; Gabe can only see his back form where he’s standing a bit behind him like the other honor guards but he knows that set of Tyson’s shoulders. Gabe’s not far behind him, but at least no one’s looking at him.

“Thank you, my lord,” the king says, when Lord Masterly finishes up. He looks around the room, at the long rectangular table with old men and women down the sides. The most powerful people of the realm, here, in this room, Gabe thinks. He can slay a thousand dragons and still not be one of them. “What else?”

“The docks,” the princess says. She’s been active in the conversation already, especially around the land dispute. Gabe doesn’t know her well—she was too busy to train as a squire, Tyson always said, sounding proud, too busy and too smart for arms. She certainly didn’t come down to the knights’ table at a feast. And from what Gabe has seen of her, she doesn’t give much away, not like her brother or father; she has an excellent political face. But Gabe’s been impressed in the past few hours, at how she manages the council members.

Now, all heads turn to her. The king does too, his lips twitching like he wants to smile at her. “Expanding the docks would do wonders for all of our trade, as I’ve said before.”

“I know this is a passion of yours, your highness,” Lady Swinton tells her. “But with the war, and the dragon, and now with the feasts—we had hoped to wrap this up quickly, but now…” she glances pointedly at Tyson, then her gaze flicks over his shoulder to Gabe. Gabe keeps his face neutral, though Tyson shifts. He’s not apologizing. “The purse can’t maintain it.”

“Unless we raise taxes,” Lord Masterly inserts, which gets groans and laughter around the table.

The princess waits until they’ve died down, then, “See, that’s where you’re wrong. I know it’s a big outlay, but it will earn itself back, then raise a profit. So if we offer an investment—not taxes—then we’ll spread out the costs so no one noble with be unduly burdened, and people will be incentivized to give us money to profit, especially now.”

She smiles, something smug like Tyson gets when he lands a good hit. The king’s not bothering to hide his smile now either. The rest of the table is murmuring to each other.

“You have the projections for how soon it would earn back profit?” Lord Vincent asks, from the far side of the table. He’s younger than some of the others, barely middle age, but portly with it.

“Yes, of course.” She puts a parchment on the table. “I can send over more details afterwards, of course.”

“Of course you do,” he agrees. “Much appreciated.” The parchment is going around the table slowly, as everyone leans in for a look. They’re nodding though, clearly interested.

“And who would you solicit investments from?” Lord Masterly asks. “We wouldn’t want to make the circle too big, of course.”

“The Council, of course,” the princess tells him.  

“The crown would put in a significant amount of money,” the king adds. That gets more approving nods.

“There are some townspeople who would be interested,” Tyson points out, among the other murmurs. It’s the first time he’s spoken the whole council, and it’s—quieter, than Tyson’s usual brash comments. “Some of the guilds would probably want better trade enough that they’d put something in.”

The room goes quiet. The princess’s smile goes tight.

“Townspeople, your highness?” Lady Swinton asks. She says the title very differently than she did to the princess. “This is an investment project, for the good of the country. We wouldn’t want to get people who didn’t understand that involved.”

“They do—”

“I know you like your jokes, your highness,” Lord Carruthers, a tiny little wisp of a man who Gabe could probably knock over with one punch and is getting very tempted to, cuts Tyson off in a drawl. “But we’re reserving this time for serious discussion.”

Gabe can’t see Tyson’s face, but he can see his shoulders hunching, how his head ducks. “Right. Sorry,” he mumbles.

“The prince may have a point,” Lord Masterly puts in. Gabe can see some of the smiles around the table, the laughter in them at Lord Masterly’s statement. His hand tightens on his sword. “The guilds may put up a fuss. We should consider that before moving forward.”

That gets some nods, and much more negative sounding murmurs.

“True, true,” the king inserts loudly, over the noise. “We should of course consider all consequences. We’ll table this for now. Is that all? I’ve heard we have something important to get to with this one.” He slaps Tyson’s shoulder jovially, and the room laughs. Tyson doesn’t move with the slap, and Gabe’s obscurely proud of him.  

“Of course, your majesty,” Lord Masterly agrees. “We should discuss the hunting trip, though—”

“The hunting trip!” the king booms, and he rises to drop into conversation with Lord Masterly as they walk out together, the King’s guard a few paces behind him.

The rest of the Council files out, still talking. A few of them give uncertain glances to the princess, who’s still waiting, gathering up her parchment.

Tyson gets up too, but he doesn’t leave, so Gabe waits too. He doesn’t approach the table, though—his place is back here.

It’s not until everyone else is gone that Tyson speaks. “Veebs, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“You never do,” she snaps. Tyson winces again, and now Gabe can see his face, see that hit land. Gabe’s seen her and Tyson talk, seen their smiles. This is far away from that. Far away from anything he’s seen of her. “Do you ever think before you talk?”

“I didn’t—I was just trying to help!” Tyson retorts. “I thought—you need more money, and the guilds—”

“The Council’s never going to get involved with the guilds! You should know that,” she spits out. “If you paid even a little bit of attention—do you know how long I worked to get them to where they’d agree to this? And I wouldn’t even have to raise taxes, it was perfect.”

“Yeah, it was you, so I’m sure it was,” Tyson throws back at her. His shoulders are tense again, and Gabe wants to—if they were alone, he’d hug him; he’d do whatever he could to get that tension away, to make Tyson smile again. But they aren’t alone, and this isn’t for him. “You could have told me.”

“So you’d do something reckless, like bring in your dragonslayer?” she laughs, mirthless. “That could have derailed everything already, you heard, and you just—you can’t just fight or laugh your way out of everything, Tys.”

“Trust me, I know.”   

“Yeah, I guess you would,” she says, and it sounds sharper than Gabe would think, like there’s layers of meaning to it. “Just—stay out of this. It’s better without you involved.”

Tyson rocks back on his heels. Gabe can’t help the motion he makes, to—do something, to stop this—but he can’t, it’s the _princess._ “Well you can’t just politics your way out of everything!” Tyson yells back.

The princess huffs out a breath, then she’s got her papers together and gives her brother one last glare before stalking out of the room, her lilac dress trailing behind her.

Tyson still doesn’t move, not even as the door slams shut. Gabe takes a step towards him, then another, so he can slide a hand onto Tyson’s shoulder.

For a second, Tyson slumps into it. Then he straightens, and smiles. It feels like the smile he would give Gabe during the war, the one where he knew what he had to do but couldn’t quite get there. “Did you enjoy your first council meeting?” he asks. “It was pretty undramatic. No duels declared or anything.”

“Tyson—”

“And it was short, I thought it’d be another hour at least,” Tyson goes on, clearly determined. “That’s good. We should go get you ready, you’ve got the second challenge to prepare for.”

“I do,” Gabe agrees. Tyson doesn’t want to talk about it, but, “Are you—with the princess—”

Tyson bites at his lip. “It’ll be—I mean, we fight, sisters, you know? I’ll just stay out of it and she’ll figure it out. She always does,” he adds, his tone a little harsher, before he puts on a smile again. “It’s better that way. Come on, let’s go. I really don’t want to be in here any more.”

Gabe lets Tyson herd him out of the room, and even down the hall. But he can’t let them get outside without saying, “It was a good idea, I thought. Going to the guilds.”

For a second, Tyson smiles, a little incredulous but pleased. Gabe swallows, and lets himself not look away. “Thanks,” he mutters, his cheeks red. “I’ll definitely trust your opinion over the council’s, but—thanks.”

“You should trust me,” Gabe agrees. “I slew a dragon, didn’t you know?”

Tyson rolls his eyes. “I think I heard that, yes,” he retorts, but he’s smiling again, for real.   


	4. The Riddle

Gabe’s pretty sure a good meal and a quick sparring session with EJ rejuvenated him after the Council meeting in time for the announcement of the second challenge, but when he hears it, he feels like he might be hallucinating anyway.

“Really?” Lady Sabrina asks, too surprised to be polite. “A puzzle?”

The king smiles smugly. He looks very pleased with himself. Next to him, Tyson meets Gabe’s eyes a little apologetically and a little annoyed. His body is tilted so that is back is to his sister, on the king’s other side, and she’s got the same sort of stance.

“A series of puzzles,” the king corrects. “To be worthy of the prince, a suitor must have more than strength at arms, they must have wit as well.” Gabe narrows his eyes, glances to the side at where the Council’s gathered. They look positively gleeful. They probably thought of this. “You will have two days to consider the puzzles. Tomorrow at sunset, each suitor will present their answer. Those who are correct may progress to the next challenge, and continue to compete for our hand in marriage.” He gestures to Tyson as he says it. Tyson’s apologetic smile now encompasses the whole group of them—Lady Amanda and Lord Wilson looking stoic, Lord Kerfoot actually looking a little excited, Prince Jamie looking as usual like he’s somewhere else entirely, Lord Xavier scowling, and Lord Duchene brow furrowed as he reads the parchment. Gabe doesn’t blame him. He’s trying to present like he’s not worried, but he has no idea what to do.

The king waves his hand. “Good luck,” he tells them, then he proceeds out of the room. The princess follows him, throwing a single look over her shoulder at her brother.

Tyson glances at them, swallows, then shrugs, and bounces down off the dais to glance over Gabe’s shoulder.

Gabe snatches it away. “You can’t look,” he scolds. “That’s cheating.”

“You think I know anything about this?” Tyson demands, making another pass at grabbing the parchment out of Gabe’s hand. “They wouldn’t tell me anything after the first challenge. I think when I suggested one was a dance-off they decided I wasn’t taking it seriously.” Tyson tsks his tongue. “Like I don’t take dance-offs seriously. I think that would have told me everything I need to know about all competitors.”

Gabe is wise to Tyson’s tricks—he half-listens to his babble and doesn’t let it distract him from holding the parchment away from him. Above him, really, because he likes to be a dick and how Tyson scowls whenever he does that. “Come on,” Tyson whines. “I will tackle you, Landeskog, don’t think I won’t. You know I can take you down.”

Gabe snorts. “In your dreams.”

Tyson flushes. “You have nothing to do with my dreams, wow, aren’t you conceited?”

“You told me you’d dream about my exhibition fight with Sir—”

“Yeah, because of my deep love for him,” Tyson agrees immediately and shamelessly. “The way he handles his pike…” Tyson trails off with a little bit of a moan.

Gabe is suddenly intensely aware that the other suitors are all still there, watching the two of them; aware that Tyson’s still improperly close given how close he was to wrestling Gabe. Aware that Tyson has maybe once in his life thought about the propriety of the sounds coming out of his mouth, but no more than that.

“Your highness,” he says, and takes a step back. Tyson narrows his eyes at Gabe. “I should get to work on this.”

“Ugh, fine.” Tyson rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t follow Gabe. “If you won’t let me see, maybe someone else will.” He turns his back on Gabe, and goes over to bug Prince Jamie, who laughs at what Tyson says but also keeps the parchment out of his hands.

“The Prince really shouldn’t be down here,” Lord Duchene says, just quietly enough that Tyson probably won’t hear him. “He should trust that whichever of us is worthy will find the answer, not try to change the rules.”

“From what I’ve heard, the prince doesn’t care much for rules.” Lord Xavier points out, louder “Doesn’t he spend most of his time with the commonfolk?”

“The prince,” Gabe snaps. Somehow his hand is on the hilt of his sword. He’s heard enough of that today already. “Wants to know some things about a competition that he has a large stake in. Would any of you begrudge him that?” His gaze flicks around—Lord Wilson looks amused, Lady Amanda thoughtful, Lord Duchene a little sheepish. Lady Sabrina and Lord Kerfoot aren’t paying any attention, just studying the parchments; Lord Kerfoot still looks excited. “Would you?” Gabe repeats, focusing on Lord Xavier, who looks unrepentant, but shrugs.

“Never said I was begrudging him anything,” he says, his lip curling. “I was just surprised to see you did.”

“I—”

“Sir Landeskog!” Josty appears out of nowhere next to him, grinning. “Was the second challenge posed? What is it? Do we have to go on a quest?”

Gabe gives Lord Xavier a final glare, then turns to Josty. “No quest.” Behind Josty, he can see EJ nodding in satisfaction, saying something in a low voice to Mikko as he looks at Gabe, which means he probably sent Josty over and Gabe should just kill as many birds with one stone as possible.

He nods to the other suitors, considers saying goodbye to Tyson but he’s still busy talking to Prince Jamie and clearly doesn’t notice when Gabe heads to the side of the room, Josty next to him.

“So are we done challenging people to duels over Tyson’s honor?” EJ asks, when Gabe gets within hearing distance. “Or I’m assuming that’s what it was about, I actually couldn’t hear.”

“I didn’t challenge anyone to a duel,” Gabe protests. “Maybe I was just telling him that he should treat his horses better.”

“As much I as I wish that were true, somehow I don’t believe you.” EJ sighs ruefully.

“I told you I’d stop it,” Josty tells EJ, puffing out his chest a little. “You didn’t need to do anything. Or get Tyson.”

“I did get a Tyson,” EJ points out.

“Enough,” Mikko interrupts. “Gabe—what do you have to do?”

Gabe hands over the parchment. Mikko skims it, his brow furrowing in what looks like confusion. “A puzzle?” he asks. “How should we know how to solve a puzzle?”

Gabe shrugs. Tyson is still talking to Prince Jamie. “I’ll figure it out,” he tells them.

EJ rolls his eyes, and snatches the parchment from Mikko. “We’ll figure it out,” he informs Gabe. “We can’t have you losing. What would that do for the honor of the Prince’s Guard?”

“Prove that we’re all the idiots everyone says we are?” Gabe suggests. “No. We can’t have that.”

///

Nine hours later, and Gabe’s pretty sure that yes, they are going to prove to everyone that the Guard is as brainless as some of the meaner rumors say. Gabe knows, and even if he hadn’t, the council session ran it home, that he’s not particularly brilliant with things like books or writing; he’s great with tactics and the sort of battlefield knowledge that makes a knight, but he’s no scholar. If he were a scholar, he would have taken the younger son path of university, not knighthood. But he’d never thought he was stupid, either.

Except that he has no idea how to solve this puzzle.

“This is just a way for the Council to laugh at all the meathead knights,” Gabe complains, glaring at the parchment he’s been working at for the last eternity. The room they staked out in the knights’ quarters is big enough to fit a good half the Guard, but it still feels cramped and small—or maybe that’s just how much time Gabe has spent in it, working at the big table in the center of the room. “They want to laugh at us all when we get it wrong. How is anyone supposed to figure this out? It can’t be done.”

“It can be.” Z’s starting to look a little manic, his hand in his hair. “It has to be. There has to be an answer.”

“There probably isn’t,” Gabe keeps bitching. He’s been in this room too long. He’s forgotten what the sun looks like. Well, the moon is probably out, but the point stands. “They probably made this answerless, so we’d look like idiots.”

“I don’t think they’d do that,” Nate says. He yawns, then gets up. “I’m going to bed. I’ll be back in the morning,” he adds, before Gabe starts in on him like he had when Sven had decided to betray him by going to sleep. “But I need to sleep before I go insane. Anyone coming?”

Z lets his head fall down to the table with a groan. “Yes. I can’t do this anymore, Gabe, I’m sorry. Tell Tyson that I’m sorry and I believe in you.”

“I won’t,” Gabe mutters, but he turns to glare at EJ, who’s the only one left, as Nate and Z head out, probably back to their quarters. “Are you going too?”

“I can stay a little longer, but some of us have to wake up.” EJ looks at him, presses his lips together. “You should get sleep too.”

“I can’t. We’ve gotten nowhere on this, we have to solve it.”   Gabe presses down with his quill hard enough that it makes an indent in the parchment. “I have to. Otherwise Tyson will end up marrying—someone he doesn’t want to.” Gabe’s breath feels ragged, thinking of it. Thinking of failing.

EJ pauses, glances at the door, then back at Gabe. There’s something terrifyingly kind in that look. “You know you don’t marry him, if you win.”

Gabe snorts. Feels himself smile, somehow. “Yes, I know that.” That’s never been a question. He’s always known what sort of person Tyson is supposed to marry. “But—he deserves to marry someone who loves him. Who think all his—” Gabe waves a hand, trying to take in all the many contradictions of Tyson, the laughter and the focus, the carelessness and the cautious, the kind and the sharp, the spoiled and the generous— “is something to treasure. Not to endure for his position or his lands.”

EJ’s smile is a strange mix of rueful and amused. “And that person isn’t here?”

“It’s definitely not most of the suitors,” Gabe looks down at the parchment, so he doesn’t have to look at EJ’s smile. He knows that much. “And I’m going to give Tyson the chance he wants to wait for that right person.”

“To wait, right.” EJ shakes his head, and stands up. “Gabe. You know this isn’t sustainable, right? You’re going to go insane. If you don’t say anything, then someday Tyson’s going to get married.”

 Gabe sighs, and turns back to the parchment. He knows. He’s always known. “I’ll get sleep when I figure this out, then he won’t have to get married now. I promise I’ll stay sane.”

“Stay is a strong word,” EJ tells him, but he ruffles Gabe’s hair before he leaves.

Gabe stares at the words on the parchment more. It just—he doesn’t even know how to start. He’d figured out the code, but then the words the code gave him don’t make sense—is it the wrong code?

He doesn’t know how long he’s staring at it before there’s a knock on the door.

“Come in,” he calls. Maybe it’s the dragon, come back to put him out of his misery.

It’s almost as surprising as the dragon—Lord Wilson and Lady Amanda are standing in the doorway.

Gabe blinks. Maybe he’s started hallucinating. There’s no other reason that the lords and ladies would come down to the knights’ quarters.

“May we come in?” Lady Amanda asks.

“I already said yes,” Gabe says, too tired not to be snarky. Lord Wilson grins, and ushers the lady in, shutting the door behind them. “Why are you here?”

Lord Wilson looks at Lady Amanda, who nods solemnly. “We have no idea how to solve this,” Lord Wilson says frankly. “We hoped three heads—well, three and your Guard—would be better than two.”

Gabe blinks again. “Isn’t that cheating?”

“The king never said so,” Lady Amanda points out. She pulls out the chair Nate had been sitting in, drops into it. “As long as we all present the answer, he didn’t make any rules about not working together.”

“But it’s not honest,” Gabe protests. He covers a yawn with the back of his hand. “People will say that if we won, it’s because we—”

“People don’t need to know,” Lady Amanda says. She tucks a lock of blonde hair back into her neat bun.

“And if they do—” Lord Wilson shrugs. “We’ll still have gotten the answer.”

Gabe tries to think of a better way to tell them that that’s a lot easier for them to say as nobles than for him as a knight, who technically could be dismissed or sent to a different posting at any moment. He’s seen it happen before—though never to the Guard, because once the king tried it and Tyson threw such a fit that he recanted. Soda is still here. But only by the grace of Tyson’s loyalty. “But—”

“Do you love your prince?” Lady Amanda asks, simple and frank.

Gabe’s never had to think about that. “Of course.”

“And do you want to win?”

Gabe’s never had to think about that either. “Of course.”

“Then we should help each other.”

“Otherwise,” Lord Wilson adds, “Lord Xavier will win. Do you really want him for a lord?” He smiles, wryly. “We’re the best of your options, Sir Landeskog.” His smile turns more serious. “I know I can say that if I win, I swear I will do my utmost to be worthy of it.”

Gabe sighs. He’s not wrong. He likes the two of them, as far as he knows them. He trusts Lord Wilson’s oath. He’d said that was what he wanted for Tyson, for his spouse to understand that Tyson was someone to be worthy of. If this will get them that—that’s what matters.

“Okay,” he agrees. “How far have you gotten?”

Lady Amanda groans, and Gabe laughs in sympathy.

///

They work through the night—they grab some sleep on the couch in the corner of the room, and Gabe may or may not fall asleep with his head in the parchment once, and in the morning—

“There’s another one?” Colin asks, incredulous, staring at the parchment. Gabe gets the feeling. They’d solved the puzzle—and gotten another one? How evil was the Council?

“I give up,” Amanda announces, though she doesn’t move. Even her calm has been broken, sometime in the night. “An entire troop of soldiers couldn’t do it, my head injury couldn’t do it for two years, but—this? This killed me.”

“We can do it,” Gabe tells them, trying for enthusiastic. “We did this one, right? We got it.”

“There’s probably another one underneath it,” Colin points out. “The test might be how far down we get.”

“Then we get to the bottom,” Gabe decides. He looks at each of them. “Right?”

“Right.” Amanda agrees, sitting up again.

“Right,” Colin echoes. “Though—is there a place here we can get food?”

“Oh, yeah, I can—” As if summoned, the door opens, and Josty pokes his head in. His brow furrows in very obvious confusion at the two nobles sitting in the room, as disheveled as Gabe. “Josty, good. Can we get some breakfast?” Gabe asks. “For three. And as many of the Guards who want to come help.”

Josty’s forehead smoothes out, and he nods. “Oh, you’re collaborating? I mean. Yes, sir.” He salutes, and manages to look insolent doing that. Gabe wonders if that’s a power innate to the name. “I’ll go to the kitchens.”

“Good, thanks.” The door closes behind him.

“Food’s on its way,” Gabe repeats unnecessarily to the other two. “Next puzzle?”

The food arrives half an hour later, accompanied by Josty and Lord Kerfoot, hovering behind Josty and looking a little sheepish.

“I told him you were collaborating and he should join,” Josty informs them cheerfully. “Kerfy’s really good at puzzles, you should use him.”

“I’m not that good,” Lord Kerfoot murmurs, though in a way that makes it seem like he knows he’s pretty damn good.

“We could use the help,” Colin admits, looking at Amanda and Gabe. Amanda shrugs. Gabe nods.

“Come in,” he agrees. “Where are you?”

“I’m about halfway through the second puzzle—”

“Great, sit down.” Gabe tugs him into a seat. “Keep talking.”

///

With Alexander’s help, they start to really get somewhere—like Colin expected, there’s another puzzle under the third one, because apparently this is actually a test of how well you can stand up to torture. The rest of the Guard filter in and out, but they don’t have that sort of stamina, apparently, and also have real duties.

There’s something that Gabe can understand someone would find meditative, about the quiet of the room, the scratch of their quills. Someone might find that, but after another few hours, Gabe’s on his feet, can’t help it; starting to pace around. Josty looks up.

“Why are you even doing this?” Josty asks, watching him pace the room. “This is awful. I’d just give up. I like the prince, but he’s not worth this.”

“That’s why you’re not his champion,” Gabe tells him. “Go back to work.” He does another lap of the room, watches as the other three suitors, Josty, and the handful of the Guard work. He’ll get back to it. He just needs to breathe.

“But really,” EJ asks. “Gabe, I get. He’s Tyson’s champion. You three, you don’t have to do this. The prince is great, but marrying him would be exhausting.”

“Hey,” Gabe warns.

“You know I love him,” EJ tells him. He’s got a look on like he’s trying to start shit. “He’s my prince and all that. But he’s also a brat, sometimes.”

“EJ,” Gabe snaps.

“And it will be so loud,” Mikko agrees. “So much talking, all the time—”

“Sir Rantanen,” Gabe barks out this time. “Sir Johnson. I think the armory needs cleaning.”

“You aren’t Knight-Captain again yet—”

“The armory,” Gabe repeats, and Mikko groans and gets up. EJ follows, with a glare and a significant look at Gabe.

“At least I’ll get to stop doing puzzles,” EJ retorts, and slams the door behind him.

Gabe lets out a breath, and drops into his chair. It’s the only sound in the room.

“Sorry,” he says at last. “The Guard does have discipline, I promise.”

“I know,” Lady Amanda says. “I’ve seen.” Gabe hums, drags the parchment back towards him. “You may not remember it, but we marched together for a time, during the war.”

Gabe looks at the quill. “That wasn’t our finest moment.”

“It wasn’t anyone’s,” she agrees, quietly, and rubs at the back of her head.

Gabe doesn’t have anything to say to that—it’s true and that’s what there is to it, and they all still carry the scars, and so does the realm. So they get back to work, until a knock on the door sounds, then, without waiting, the door’s pushed open.

“Isn’t this a sight.” All of their heads jerk up. Tyson’s standing there, grinning at them. He looks fresh as a daisy, flushed like he just woke up, in one of his many garishly embroidered tunics. Any sort of bitterness from the day before doesn’t appear on his face. “I’d say a pretty sight, but I have it on good authority it’s been a day since Gabe bathed, so I’m only so-so on him.”

Gabe smiles despite himself, rolling his eyes. “It’s gotten less pretty in the last few minutes.”

“Shush, don’t offend the suitors.” Tyson shakes his head at Gabe. “Raised in a barn. Sorry,” he tells the others. “You’re all a very pretty sight.” He pauses. “Kerf, did you know you have ink on your face?”

“What?” Kerfy starts to rub at his face; Josty starts laughing.

“We’re not offended,” Colin tells him. He’s smiling too, like he gets it—what Tyson does to a room just by entering it. “What are you doing here, your highness?”

“Tyson, for the hundredth time, Colin.” Tyson rolls his eyes. “Do I have to tell you again? No your highnessing me.”

“Fine. My lord,” Colin adds, and Tyson makes a face.

“You can’t help us,” Gabe tells him, trying for stern.

“Yes, I know, you made that very clear.” Tyson informs Gabe pointedly. “Not that I’d be much help anyway. I think they made this one Tyson-proof.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Colin tells him.

“No it definitely is,” Tyson confirms, cheerful. “Puzzles are not my specialty.”

“It’s okay, you’re good at other things,” Gabe tells him. “You managed to find the brightest tunic in the land, for once.”

“I’ve got to get something to match your hair in blinding goldness,” Tyson agrees, grinning. Gabe’s still trying to make sense of that when Tyson goes on. “Anyway, what I’m really here for is to kidnap Gabe for a while. I hear he’s getting mean.”

Gabe’s jaw drops. “Did EJ run to you to tell on me?”

“No, EJ went to JT to tell on you, and he came to me.” Tyson turns to the other suitors. “Sorry, he gets moody when he doesn’t get his exercise. I’ll just take him for a walk and get him back to you.”

“Tyson.” Gabe rolls his eyes. “Can I—” he looks around. These are technically competitors. He gets up. “Can I talk to you, for a second?”

“You seem to be managing it okay,” Tyson tells him, but he steps outside, leans against the hall wall so Gabe can lean in too. “What?”

Gabe lets out a long breath. “Tys, I can’t take a break. I need to solve this. If I don’t solve it by tonight, I don’t win, and then you—”

“You think I don’t know that?” Tyson snaps back. “Trust me, no one gets this is important more than me. But it’s not more important than you going insane, and you won’t listen to anyone else, so we’re going for a walk. And,” he keeps going, before Gabe can answer that, “You getting grumpy and yelling at everyone isn’t going to help anyone think. So let’s go for a walk down to the market, and we can come back with food for your team here, and then you can finish winning this thing for me, eh?”

“They’re not my team,” Gabe tells him, but Tyson’s got his stubborn face on, and a walk does sound nice, anyway.

“Great.” Tyson sticks his head back into the room. “I’ll have him back to you soon. Carry on as you were, may the best person win—my hand, I guess, so iffy prize, but it comes with plenty of perks not even provided by me, so carry on anyway. And if you can put up with grumpy Gabe, we’ll probably get along, so—”

“We’re going,” Gabe interrupts, because it sounds like Tyson’s starting a ramble. “Come on. We’ll be back with provisions soon,” he tells the others, who nod. Amanda’s still concentrating on what she’s working on, and Colin’s smiling, quiet. Alexander’s head is bent like he’s studying the parchment, but his eyes are on Tyson. None of them look particularly annoyed Gabe’s leaving.

“And going,” Tyson announces, wrapping a hand around Gabe’s wrist to pull him away.

Tyson seems to have a plan for where they’re going, as they walk over the drawbridge towards the lower city. Tyson seems cheerful; Gabe can admit to himself it’s kind of nice, to tilt his face up to the sun, to move, to get out of that damned room.

Not even the mutter he hears as they go through the main courtyard, of, “Of course he’s taking time to go to town, even now,” can dim the pleasure of the sunlight. Tyson ignores it too, anyway; he doesn’t even look at the lord who said it. It’s never stopped Tyson from spending time at the market, Gabe thinks bitterly at the Council.  

They make it to the market, which is late for the morning shoppers but is still in full swing, bustling with people and animals and noise under the bright sun. It’s good to see it crowded again; when Gabe had left a year ago, it had been sparsely populated, too many people scared away by the dragon or devastated by the war. But it seems to be near to its old noise, now.

Gabe slides closer to Tyson, just in case—they’d lost Tyson once in a market and Gabe had gotten screamed at by the old knight-captain before they’d found Tyson again happily chatting with a prostitute and a priest, which had made an impression. Especially after they’d all ended up getting dinner together, and Gabe’s not certain but he thinks that one of the prostitute’s policy suggestions ended up in a royal proclamation not long after.

But nothing like that happens this time—the townsfolk clearly recognize the prince, but they just smile at him and beam; some of the children run after him to ask about his dogs. If anything, Gabe is getting more looks; he hears the whisper of _dragonslayer_ more than once.

But no one says anything as Gabe and Tyson argue cheerfully about the squires. It’s really time for Tyson to find someone new, Gabe insists; he can’t keep monopolizing JT when he’s a full knight and should be doing knight things; Tyson thinks it can’t be rushed and anyway Gabe copped out by just finding one.

“I didn’t just find Josty,” Gabe protests, as they come to a stop at a stall covered in brightly colored scarves. Tyson greets the shopkeeper by name, then picks up a scarf, runs it between his fingers. “I took him on as thanks because he needed training and I would have died without his family taking me in.”

Tyson’s gaze narrows, and he looks Gabe over, a longer process than Gabe might have thought. “You almost died?” he demands.

“Yes.” When Tyson still looks incredulous, Gabe rolls his eyes. “Fighting a dragon isn’t easy, you know. They breathe fire.”

“Thanks, I noticed,” Tyson drawls, which is fair—they’d all known that. They’d all seen that, too well. “But you didn’t say that.”

“What, you thought I just pranced over and told the dragon we’d had enough, and that was that?” Gabe asks.

Tyson presses his lips together, then, “I figured you smiled at it politely and fluttered your eyelashes and it couldn’t stand your face so it went away,” he retorts, easy again.

Gabe snorts. “Someone, dragons don’t reply to my charm like that.”

“That’d make one being,” Tyson says, and then he goes a little red and rolls his eyes. “I mean, we all know that’s up there in your skill set. Great with a sword, handy with a lance, top ten rider, best smile in the Avalanche. We should make that a requirement for the Guard, maybe—has to be able to charm their way out of a fight,” Tyson’s still talking, so Gabe’s barely had time to swallow that onslaught of compliments. “Although then we’d have to kick EJ out.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Gabe asks, and Tyson snorts.

“I mean, the horses might rebel, and that would be a whole thing.” Tyson shakes his head. “Can you imagine having to walk up to the Avalanche? No thank you.”

“You know plenty of people do that,” Gabe points out. Tyson’s pawing through more scarves now, lingering over a few. “The ones who can’t afford horses.”

Tyson makes a face. “Yes, I know, but they aren’t usually wearing full plate mail, either. Or have to go look pretty in front of a full court. I mean, you might be able to ride all day and then just look heroic and flushed, but some of us don’t look princely after climbing up a mountain.”

“You always look princely wearing a crown,” Gabe replies. He knows Tyson does this—he remembers both of them rushing to court more than once as boys, Tyson still a little dirty from sparring through the hedge maze, and the _look_ his father shot at him—but he also knows that Tyson’s a prince down to his spoiled, regal bones.

“But then I have to wear a crown,” Tyson whines. “It’s so heavy. Anyway, look at this. Isn’t it amazing? Master Weaver makes the best scarves in town. Do you think I should buy it?” he asks Gabe, holding the scarf up to his face as the shopkeeper, a young, round-face man, murmurs a denial. It’s purple and green, garish clashing colors that someone might be able to pull off, but that someone isn’t Tyson.

Still, Gabe knows he can’t hide the wince at the brightness of the colors. “I don’t know why I ask you,” Tyson tells him, then turns to the shopkeeper. “Ignore him, he’s boring and doesn’t have any taste. You and me, we know this looks amazing, right?”

The shopkeeper shoots Gabe a glance, then nods. “Yes, your highness.”

Tyson rolls his eyes. “You have to tell me if it doesn’t. He always says it looks bad on me,” he jerks a head towards Gabe. “I need to be able to trust someone around here.”

“I don’t!” Gabe protests. “I tell you the truth.”

“I think it’s a little sallow for your complexion,” the shopkeeper tells him tactfully. “I have some more over here you might like better.”

“Oh, excellent. Lead on, master,” Tyson tells him, still cheerful, and Gabe follows him as he follows the shopkeeper to a corner to look.

Tyson buys a scarf, then drapes it around his neck as they go to other stalls—they buy some cheese, a little wooden figurine; even at the shops Tyson doesn’t buy anything at he lingers to talk with the store owners, rambling on about their wares and their families and teasing Gabe and directing the many excited questions about dragons to Gabe, usually in the same sentence

Finally, they end up at a stall Gabe recognizes—a large stall surrounded with the smell of rich bread and sugar. The woman tending it is the same as she was before she left too, a middle-aged woman with a smile as warm as her wares, though the furrow between her brows is new, and the lines beside her eyes.

“Your highness!” she exclaims, when Tyson comes in. “I didn’t know you’d be by today. I thought you’d be busy up at the castle.” 

“We’re taking a break,” Tyson explains, coming up to the counter.

“And you, Sir Landeskog. Dragonslayer,” she goes on, beaming at Gabe. “It’s good to have you home. You’ve done us all proud, haven’t you?” Gabe smiles back.

“It’s good to be home, Mistress Baker,” he tells her. “It’s good to see you’re still a magnet for Tyson.”

“Well I’m not sure about that,” she says, and gives Tyson a raised eyebrow look. “He hasn’t been down here in a while.”

“I’ve been a little busy,” Tyson protests.

She shakes her head. “I thought maybe you’d gotten a new chef up at the castle there. That maybe you’d been seduced away, that I shouldn’t give you any of the rum raisin cake that’s right out of the oven.”

“Never,” Tyson swears. He looks about ready to drop to one knee. “You know you’re my one true baker, Mistress Maggie. And never will I stray. If your husband wasn’t twice my size and so handy with a hammer, I’d steal you away forever. And also your children, because they’re great but I don’t think the castle would survive them. But other than that…can I have cake?”

She laughs and swats at him. “You’re trouble, is what you are,” she says. “Not enough spankings as a child.”

“Oh I’ve been spanked plenty,” Tyson says, and gives a quick sidelong glance to the side that makes Gabe snort.

Mistress Baker chuckles, shaking her head. “Maybe it’s a good thing you’re getting married,” she says. “Settling down might keep you out of trouble.

Gabe pauses, but she’s laughing still, and Tyson joins in. “The only way I could stay out of trouble would be with a gag,” Tyson says, and Gabe chokes. Tyson shoots a look at him, mischievous and coy, then keeps going. “And I don’t think any of the suitors seem the type. Now, if you wanted to teach them…”

“Your highness,” Gabe interrupts. He knows Tyson flirts with everyone, but if he lets Tyson go on forever he will just keep going. Mistress Baker will tell him to stop, probably, but people tend to find it hard to tell Tyson to stop.

Tyson presses his lips together. “Fine, spoilsport.” He rolls his eyes at Gabe, somehow looping in Mistress Baker. “How are the hellspawn anyway? Still raising terror at school?”

“Thomas and Tiffany, aye,” Mistress Baker tells him. She turns away, towards the oven; Gabe can see her shoulders hunch beneath her apron. “Connor, he’s working here most days. We need the hands, since Sarah had to leave.”

“That must lose you more than you gain, though, with the amount he pilfers,” Tyson keeps going, before a silence can land. Gabe remembers Sarah, the Bakers’ assistant; she’d been there as long as Gabe can remember, a woman with sharp enough eyes to tell when they were thinking of touching before they bought. Gabe doesn’t know why she’d leave willingly. “Maybe I should watch him. Make sure he’s honest.”

“Steal even more along with him,” Gabe counters, and Tyson shrugs.

“I never said I’d be honest, just that he’d be,” he retorts, and Mistress Baker chuckles and shakes her head again, then reaches for the cake.

“Fine, you can have your cake,” she tells them, and pulls down a decadent looking plate. Tyson’s eyes widen. Gabe elbows him.

“Stop drooling,” he whispers. Tyson mutters something uncomplimentary.

“What was that?” Mistress Baker asks, turning back to them.

“Gabe was saying that he didn’t want his cake and you should give it to me,” Tyson tells her, straight-faced. “He needs to be in shape for the third challenge. So as his prince, I get the cake.”

“His highness was saying that he actually wasn’t hungry,” Gabe retorts, “Because he already ate half the sweets at breakfast, and so he wants to give his piece to me.”

“You didn’t see me eat breakfast, you don’t know that!”

“I know what you eat for breakfast when you have a choice.”

“Well I’m sorry I prefer more than oatmeal from the mess.”

“That’s why you needed all new tunics since I’ve been gone—thank you,” Gabe tells Mistress Baker, when she hands him his slice of cake. “It looks delicious.”

“I’d say your best ever, but then I’ll regret that next time,” Tyson agrees. He takes a bite of the cake; the sound that comes out of his mouth is one Gabe should have expected but somehow his conscious, waking mind always forgets. “Oh, Mistress Maggie. What do I have to do to get you to come to the castle?”

She shakes her head. “I can’t leave here. You’ll just have to keep coming back.” She turns to Gabe. “You keep making sure he does, yes? We can’t have our prince disappearing off to someone else’s lands. We need him here.”

Tyson’s mouth is full of cake, his cheeks puffed out; his hair is a little dusty; he has a horribly clashing scarf wrapped around his neck. “Yes, ma’am,” Gabe tells her. “We can’t have that.”

Tyson swallows his too big bite with difficulty. “Then Gabe better win.”

Gabe thinks of that long year, mostly alone; the dreams he had where his sleeping mind remembered things his waking mind could not. “What else is a prince’s knight for?” he replies, and watches Tyson’s cheeks go red.

“Sure enough,” Mistress Baker agrees. She taps at Gabe’s hand, smiling proudly. “And you’ve been doing that, haven’t you? Beating all the other suitors. We were watching, along with most of the town,” she tells them, turning back to the oven to turn some bread. “Saw you bring down Lord Wilson. He won at Broadway Field, did you know? And you beat him.” She smiles again. Gabe knows he’s probably grinning; Tyson’s shaking his head at Gabe, amused. “I haven’t seen a sight like that since before the war.” 

“See?” Gabe asks, turning to Tyson. “Some people appreciate me.”

“I appreciate you plenty,” Tyson mutters, and glances away. 

They leave soon after, bellies full and with a package of cookies to bring back to the knights’ quarters.

Tyson’s quieter, as they walk back, munching on a cracker Mistress Baker had pressed into their hands last minute. It’s not unusual, necessarily—Tyson can on occasion be quiet—but it is rare. Gabe takes the time to appreciate the sun for the last few minutes he has before he’s sequestered away forever. It’s better than wondering if Tyson’s still mad about his fight with his sister—Gabe’s considering asking about it, but before he can,

“You know you don’t have to win, right?” Tyson says suddenly. He’s looking straight ahead.

“What?” Gabe blinks. “I thought that was the whole point.” He swallows. “Unless there’s someone you would like me to lose to—” Maybe Colin, who smiled softly at Tyson; maybe Prince Jamie, who’s known Tyson even longer than Gabe.

“No, definitely not, absolutely not, I mean, if you could win, that would definitely be the best.” Tyson says it so quickly that Gabe has to chuckle a little. Tyson makes a face, looks at his feet again. “I mean—you just got home from this huge quest where you almost died and then I immediately threw you into this new thing, and, that’s a lot of pressure, and I know you do things for honor you wouldn’t otherwise do and I don’t want to make you do anything just because my father decided that it was time for a show of strength and he was going to use me to do it—”

“I’m fine with pressure,” Gabe interrupts. “What do you mean, show of strength?”

Tyson rolls his eyes. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? After the war, and then the dragon, people were starting to see us as weak. Father couldn’t have that, so—time to put on a big spectacle marrying me off, show we have money and resources.” He makes a face, his brow furrowing. “Never mind that it’s all a show.”

“So that’s why we were down there today? To spend money?” Gabe quashes down any sort of disappointment at that.

“We were down there because you needed a break,” Tyson informs him, with a way-too innocent look on his face.

“Tyson.”

“And because maybe I wanted to spend time with you! I haven’t seen you, you got back and then we’ve been all caught up in this tournament and I have to be on my own for most of it, and you know how bad I am at that, Nate had to stop me from climbing out my window yesterday. If I don’t make fun of your head at least once a day, who even am I?”

Gabe grins, but. “Tyson.”

Tyson shifts uncomfortably. “Fine. I just—we don’t have the money, really. Or at least, the townsfolk don’t. Connor Baker should be in school, not having because his parents can’t pay an assistant anymore. And if the townsfolk are struggling, the farmers definitely are.” He kicks at a clump of dirt. “So it’s partly spending money, but it’s also showing them we care, you know? That we aren’t just sitting in our castle not thinking about them. Father won’t do it, Victoria—” Tyson’s lips twist. “She ‘s too busy on her big important projects. I know I’m not the best prince, but I can come to town and chat and spend money and make sure they don’t think we’ve forgotten about them.”

He scrubs furiously at the back of his neck, flushed like he always does when he’s being forced to admit he’s done something good. Gabe just shakes his head at him. Tyson spends so much time playing the aimless princeling, good for a drink or a gamble, that sometimes even Gabe almost forgets that he’s so, so much more than that. That Tyson should be underestimated at your own peril, because he’s not nearly as stupid as he seems, and he cares so much, even if he likes to hide it.

“That’s good of you,” Gabe tells Tyson, nudging his side so he’ll look at Gabe. “They love you, you know. They wouldn’t think that you forgot.”

Tyson goes even redder. “Shut up,” he mutters. “Anyway. I meant—if you lose, and I have to marry one of them, it’s not, like, the end of the world. I’d figure it out, and it wouldn’t be your fault. Your honor wouldn’t be tarnished.” He glances at the other side of the road. “Me asking you to do something doesn’t mean you have to do it, or die trying.”

Gabe grabs Tyson’s wrist, tugs him to a stop. Tyson’s still not looking at him. “You aren’t leaving,” he tells Tyson, certainly as he can. “Or, only to go to the Avalanche. Nowhere else.”

“But if I do, that’s not—” Tyson insists. Gabe cuts him off. He can’t—Tyson can’t leave. He can’t. Tyson is a part of this place. “And I mean, you know the Guard would come with me.”

Gabe shrugs. He knows that—they’re the Prince’s Guard—but…it wouldn’t be the same. It won’t be the same, if Tyson is married. Even if his spouse doesn’t take up his time, it’ll be—different.

“Hey. You aren’t doing this just because of that, right?” Tyson asks. He bites at his lip. “I mean, if you want to stay in town so much, you can stay even if I leave. I’ll release you from the Guard.”

“No,” Gabe says, too fast. No, that’s the last thing he wants. The only thing worse than Tyson leaving would be not going with him. “I’m your knight, Tyson. Forever. On my honor.” 

Gabe can feel Tyson’s heartbeat, sparrow-fast beneath Gabe’s hand. “Gabe, you’re so—” Tyson swallows. “I know,” he says, and there’s something warm and something rueful in it. “And you losing wouldn’t change that. You’d still be mi—” he cuts off, red. Gabe would really like to know how he was going to finish that sentence.

“I’d still be what?” he prompts.

“Nothing,” Tyson mutters, which is so unlike him Gabe drops his hand in surprise. “We should get back, let’s go, you have lots to think about, come on.”

“No, what were you going to say?” Gabe demands, but he starts walking again when Tyson does. “Tyson—”

“You’d still be a big-headed nuisance,” Tyson tells him, which is so wrong that Gabe has to shove him off the road, laughing as he stumbles and stutters back at him and shoves him back.

///

Tyson bids Gabe good-bye and the rest of the suitors, “Good luck, but not too much good luck,” at the door, then disappears back to do whatever he’s been doing for the past few days.

Gabe settles back in. None of the Guard is there, but Amanda looks up. “Have a good time with your prince?” she asks, and she’s been spending too much time with the Guard—she has a straight face but there’s something in her eyes, with the way she says ‘your.’

“He had errands to run in town,” Gabe replies, trying to be pointed but also respectful. She is still a lady, after all. “We just went to a few shops. And got you all some pastries.” He sets the bag on the table, where Alexander snags one before anyone else can even reach for it. “Where have we gotten here?”

The three of them somehow exchange looks. “There’s a snag,” Colin says, tugging the bag away from Alexander.

“A snag?” Gabe demands. They’ve gotten so far. They need to get farther. If Gabe’s disqualified—Gabe has a sudden flash of imagining Tyson walking around town with Lord Duchene, who’s hurrying him through because he doesn’t understand what Tyson’s doing or trust him and isn’t amused by him. Of the rest of their lives being like this, Tyson only coming to the Guard here and there, when he can spare time from his spouse—or, worse, his spouse finally making him understand that nobles don’t do this, they don’t talk to the knights like this, and Tyson’s visits stopping altogether. That’s unacceptable. “What?”

“They diverge,” Amanda says flatly. Gabe narrows his eyes.

“What?”

“The next clue, it’s based on the first parchment, and we all had slightly different wording.” Alexander paws through the paper around him, starts to point to show Gabe, but honestly Gabe doesn’t care how they figured it out, just that they did, so he waves him away.

“Well, damn,” Gabe says, and gets an agreeing grunt from Colin. He pulls his original parchment towards him. “So, what’s the situation?”

The situation is Gabe has no clue what he’s doing, and as the clock ticks down that doesn’t look like it’s changing. Amanda leaves not quite finished, a few hours before they have to give their answers, with an apologetic, hopeful nod at the rest of them claiming she has to bathe; Colin gets his final answer an hour later and leaves too with a clap to Gabe’s shoulder and a grin at Alexander.

Then it’s just Alexander and Gabe still working—and JT and Mikko, who have come in to help, but Alexander’s the only other suitor who’s there. Gabe’s busy working, not panicking he can’t panic, so he doesn’t really wonder about it, but it is odd—Alexander was the one of them who’d gotten the puzzles the fastest.

The clock ticks down, and down, and Gabe still—he’s not going to get it. At least Colin got it, he thinks; Tyson would be happy with Colin. That is Gabe having done his duty, it’s enough, except—it isn’t. It can’t be. Tyson doesn’t want to get married, despite everything he said about Gabe’s honor; he won’t get married. Gabe has to win.

A knock on the door. Josty sticks his head in, sees Gabe’s face, and bites at his lip. “You really have to get ready now,” he tells Gabe, and his kindness hurts all the more. Gabe remembers after the dragon, Josty at his bedside hanging on his every word, certain he knew what he was doing.  What will he think now that he’s failed his prince? “They’ll start without you, otherwise.”

“Then let them start,” Gabe snaps. He’s staring at the parchment so hard the letters are starting to swim, but maybe that’s the right answer. Maybe that’s the only way.

“If you’re not there, you don’t have hope of getting it,” Josty points out. Gabe lets his head thump down onto the table. He knows that. Does Josty not think he knows that?

“I don’t have any hope of getting it if I stay either,” he tells the table. “Tell Nate that when Tyson has me beheaded for failing him he should take over, not EJ.”

JT snorts, very loudly. “Tyson would die before he let anyone touch you, including him,” he says.

“Fine. When I have to leave in disgrace.”

“Yeah, he’s not going to let you do that either.”

Gabe sits up to give JT a baleful look. “I could hide. Go into a hermitage in the woods, live out my life as a simple peasant and thinking about what honor means.”

“Like Tyson wouldn’t hunt you down, and then you’d give in immediately when he asked you to come back,” Mikko informs him.

“I wouldn’t.”

“You would,” JT informs him. “Come on, let’s go.”

“I can’t,” Gabe repeats. Even if it is a lost cause, the idea of facing Tyson having failed—it had occurred to him once or twice during his quest, what would happen if he came home and had to tell the court, the king, the prince, that he had gone off questing for the honor of their land and prince and couldn’t do it. It had felt so unlikely then, that he wouldn’t succeed or die trying as honor demanded. But this is an enemy he can’t slay into submission. “I—he trusted me, and I’ll have to say I—”

“Have the answer,” Alexander interrupts, dropping a piece of parchment with a single word on it in front of him. “Because that’s it. You got it.”

Gabe looks at it, then at Alexander. Maybe the time in this room has driven him insane. “No, that’s yours, we split off—”

“And I finished yours,” Alexander tells him matter-of-factly. “This is your answer, not mine. I’ve been working on it.”

“But—” Gabe stares at him—more than a boy, but still so young. “Is yours done yet? We can tell the king it got mixed up.”

“No, you take it,” Alexander insists. “It’s your answer.”

“But I didn’t—”

“But you deserve it,” Alexander interrupts. “You—you should win, all right?”

“Not dishonestly. You figured it out,” Gabe repeats. “You—”

“I don’t want to win,” Alexander says, shrugging. “I mean, I guess marrying the prince wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, but this was all my father’s idea, to gain us a name at court. I qualified at the tournament, and I think doing this will win me more favor with the prince than marrying him would.” He glances over at JT, who nods. “And—even if I wanted to win before, I wouldn’t want to now.”

“Why not?” Gabe bristles, even as his hand falls over the parchment. Over the answer.

Alexander rolls his eyes. “I would prefer my spouse to at least have the possibility of falling in love with me,” he tells Gabe. Mikko snorts.

“Tyson could,” Gabe tells him. He doesn’t like that implication either. People always think Tyson is shallow, but—

“Is he serious?” Alexander asks, and Josty nods ruefully.

“He is.”

“It’s not him, it’s that—”

“There’s no time,” Mikko says suddenly, jumping up. “Come on, Gabe, you have to be presentable.” He grabs Gabe’s arm, pulls him to standing. Gabe lets him, but doesn’t let him pull him out of the room, not yet.

Instead, he puts a hand on Alexander’s shoulder, waits for the young man to look up at him. “Thank you,” he tells him, when he can look right at him. When he can try to encompass in those words everything he means. “Know this has won you great favor with the prince. And the Guard. If there’s anything we can do—”

“I know,” Alexander replies, blushing a little. “And, um. You’re welcome. I guess I have a weakness for true love.”

“You’ll find it,” Gabe tells him earnestly. Alexander shakes his head, grinning.

“I will,” he agrees, “Now go on. I have to get ready as well.”

“Thank you,” Gabe tells him again, and lets Mikko pull him out of the room as Josty slips by him, apparently to join the hug that JT’s pulled Alexander into.

“I still don’t like it,” Gabe tells Mikko, as they hurry down the corridor to Gabe’s quarters. “I didn’t earn it, it’s not honorable—”

“Your true love earned it,” Mikko points out. “And you don’t have time to quibble.” He opens the door, shoves him into his room. “It’s this or Tyson marrying someone who isn’t you, so get moving.”

“That’s not the—” Gabe starts, but the door closes before he can finish correcting Mikko.

///

The presentation of the answers happens in much the same way as the presentation of the challenge—the suitors standing in front of the court, the king looking gleeful, Tyson looking half-excited and half-sulky and still shooting sidelong glares at his sister, who’s much better at pretending that her brother isn’t there at all. Gabe smiles at him, trying to will him into understanding that it’s fine; it takes a while but then Gabe can see Tyson’s face light up. That—makes any sort of niggling doubt disappear. It must be honorable, Gabe thinks, to make Tyson look like that.

They go in order. Prince Jamie has his answer; Alexander admits evenly that he did not and despite the confused looks from Colin and Amanda, wishes everyone else well and the prince great happiness. Colin got the answer of course; Amanda figured it out. Lady Sabrina is scowling but resigned as she tells the court she has no answer. “Who cares about a puzzle anyway?” she mutters, stepping back into line. Lord Duchene gives his answer shortly and a little nervously. Lord Xavier states his carelessly—and then his face sinks as the king shakes his head.

“I’m sorry,” the king tells him consulting a scroll, “But the answer was actually, marbles.”

“No it wasn’t,” Lord Xavier insists, taking a step forward. “I got it right—” He stops when Z, who’s acting as Tyson’s guard today, makes a pointed movement. Z is very good at movements pointing out how large he is.

“We thank you for your participation,” the king says.

“Yes, thank you,” Tyson agrees, speaking for the first time. He is clearly trying to be gracious, and just as clearly ready for Gabe to give him his answer, his eyes flicking over to Gabe and a smile curling at his lips. It’s infectious; Gabe can’t help but smile back.

The king tries not to sigh, but he nods at Gabe. Gabe knows he’s grinning when he gives his answer, and barely gives Alexander a guilty look.

“That’s correct,” the king says, sounding a little surprised. The murmurs from the rest of court are equally unflattering. The Council in particular leans in, Lord Masterly muttering something to Lady Swift, who’s definitely not smiling.

“It is?” Tyson asks. He peers over his father’s shoulder. “Look at that, it is. I guess my champion isn’t brainless after all. I guess there has to be something in a head that big.”

“Tyson,” Gabe hisses, at the exact same time as the king. They exchange looks whose horror is only matched by Tyson’s.

Luckily, the tension is broken by the Queen, who claps her hands and announces the feast for that night, and then herds her family off the dais. Tyson grins back at Gabe as he goes.


	5. For Honor

Gabe wakes up feeling better than he has in—days. Weeks, maybe. He’s home, he made it through two of the three challenges. He can get through the last one too, and then—then it’ll be like normal, Tyson hanging around with the Guard and bantering with them and it’s almost like he’s one of them, like Gabe has a right to tug him in when he’s being ridiculous and have Tyson fall into his side and grin up at him.

Gabe carries that with him as he gets up and finds breakfast, then as he cheerfully rousts Josty out of bed so he can come practice with him. Gabe’s been neglecting his squire recently; he promised him training and training he will get.

“This is cruel and unusual punishment,” Josty whines, as Gabe drags him out to the sparring rings. There are a few other knights and squires around, though none of the Guard. “You aren’t allowed to treat me like this.”

“You’re my squire, I get to treat you how I like,” Gabe tells Josty cheerfully. “Sword up, we’re doing drills.”

Josty groans but gets his sword up. Gabe counts them off, and they start, their swords clanging. “I’m switching knights. Kerfy said he’d take me on.”

 “Kerfy?” Gabe asks. He speeds up the drill. If Josty can breathe enough to talk, he’s not going hard enough.

“Lord Alexander,” Josty tells him. Irritatingly, he keeps up with Gabe.

Gabe pauses, letting his sword drop. “And you’re calling him by his nickname?” Gabe asks.

Josty juts out his chin. It makes him look young, like the boy he still is, especially red-cheeked and panting. “He said I could. He’s been around here a lot, first with the puzzles and then at the feast, so we’ve been talking. Us and JT.”

Gabe sighs. But for all his worth, Alexander is only minor peerage. “Just be careful,” Gabe warns him. “Your honor is your currency, here. Proving you have earned it—that you’ve earned plenty of it—that’s how you prove to everyone you’re worthy.”

“Like you’re careful?” Josty retorts. “Is how you are with the prince careful?”

Gabe flushes. “That’s different.”

“Why? Kerfy’s barely even a lord. Tyson’s the prince. If anything that’s worse.”

“I’ve known Tyson for years, and I’m his captain, we need to be friendly.”

“Friendly.” Josty snorts. “JT said Tyson was happy he and Kerfy were friends,” Josty mutters.

“He’s the prince,” Gabe informs Josty. “He gets to say things like that.” He gestures to the yard. “And—” Tyson’s always thought differently about these things, from when they were boys. He’d never cared that Gabe wasn’t a noble, like he talked to servants and peasants and townsfolk alike the same as he talked to nobles. “And I’m his champion,” he finishes.

Josty eyes him. “You haven’t always been. He just called you that when we got—”

“I’ve always been his knight,” Gabe cuts him off. Maybe he hasn’t always had the title, but his sword’s been Tyson’s since the beginning. Since the first time some of the noble children dared Gabe into the hedge maze his first week at the castle, and Gabe had been lost and too stubborn to call for help until Tyson came in and led him out and insisted the children apologize, even though they insisted that it was just a joke and he was only a squire. “Sword back up. We’re starting again.”

Josty raises his sword, but, “I still don’t see why I shouldn’t be friends with Kerfy.”

Josty was raised in the country, Gabe reminds himself; he never expected to be a knight. To be more than a country squire. He never had to see the side eyes that people gave them, when Tyson sat with the knights at a feast. “Because there are limits,” Gabe tells him. “To what you can have of them. With them.” 

Josty pauses, his sword falling a little. “That’s really sad,” he tells Gabe. “What, so you and Tyson can’t really be friends because he’s the prince? Are you saying Tyson and _Nate_ aren’t really friends?”

“It’s different,” Gabe says again. It always has been—Tyson and Nate’s easy friendship against Tyson and Gabe’s. No less easy, Gabe hopes, but…different. Gabe doesn’t doubt Nate’s devotion to Tyson, but it’s—Gabe’s Tyson’s knight. His champion. He wants to say he would be even if Nate hadn’t been injured.  He should have been. “Anyway. Sword up.”

Josty grumbles, but does, and they fall into the easy rhythm, of the drill. This is what home should be like, Gabe thinks; training in the yard with the squires, Mikko coming out to “give him a real challenge, old man.”

He laughs at that, and then him and Mikko set to it, practice swords thwacking against each other in a long practiced rhythm. He’s sparred with Mikko for long enough that he knows his technique, even after this long, but Mikko is the same, and it sings in his muscles, the honest hard work of it, the crisp clean pain of the practice sword smacking against his thigh when he doesn’t block Mikko fast enough because he’s forgotten his hellishly long reach.

They’ve got an audience, Gabe senses; that’s not unusual either, that people watch the knights at work. And he knows that people will be watching him now—Dragonslayer, he thinks, remembering the sound of that title in Tyson’s mouth. Let them watch, he decides, and presses Mikko harder, grinning at the eyes on him. He likes an audience. Let them see what he can do.

“Okay, time,” Nate calls, and Gabe and Mikko step back. Gabe was right, there is an audience—much bigger than usual, actually, all sorts of people gathered and watching—but he glances over to the side of the ring, where Nate and Tyson are standing. Nate’s watching them wistfully, clearly ready for his arm to be healed, but Tyson’s eyes are on Gabe.

Gabe pushes his hair back out of his face, conscious of the drips of sweat down his face, the places his tunic is sticking to his skin. Of every bit of his skin, really.

“You’re getting slow,” Tyson says, because of course he breaks the silence. “Those moves the ones that slayed the dragon?”

Gabe smirks. He knows what Tyson sounds like when he’s lying. He knows what Tyson’s admiration looks like. “You want to come in here to find out?”

Tyson snorts. “Hah, no.”

“Are you getting slow?” Gabe asks. He wanders over to Tyson and Nate so he can rap his sword against Tyson’s ribs, gentle. “Too many visits to Mistress Baker?”

“I can’t let her feel neglected,” Tyson tells him. “We can’t all be blonde titans.” He glances around him, pointedly tilting his head upwards. “Oh wait! Everyone can but me.”

“It’s okay, we know you have a type for your Guard,” Nate tells him, which is just about the oldest joke in the book.

“Maybe you should marry Lord Wilson,” Mikko muses. “Just to finish off the set.”

“No,” Gabe says, at the same time Tyson laughs,

“Maybe I should recruit him for the Guard.”

They look at each other. Gabe can feel himself flushing, but, “You’ve got all the blondes you need already,” he tells Tyson firmly.

“You’re right,” Tyson agrees, too quickly. “I mean, I can’t have too many in my life, otherwise Nate gets jealous. That’s why you found a brunette squire, right? Give me back up.”

“ _I_ get jealous,” Nate mutters, rolling his eyes.

“I was trading up in Tysons,” Gabe agrees, and gets Tyson to make a face. “He is taller than you.”

“So is everyone, yay!” Tyson throws up his hands.

“Aw, it’s okay.” Gabe starts to reach over to tousle Tyson’s hair, before he remembers their audience and stops. “Someone has to be around to make it clear how tall I am.”

“I’m making you stand next to Z for the next year,” Tyson informs him, and grins smugly at Gabe’s expression.

“If you can do that, you can practice,” Gabe decides, before this gets out of hand and Tyson actually does go messing around with the assignments. “Go on. The squires need another partner.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Tyson tells him, loudly enough that it gets murmurs from the people watching; Gabe steps back. Tyson’s gaze flicks around too, but he doesn’t say anything else. “Fine, but I’m not working with you, you’re mean. Mikko?”

“Are you—” Mikko glances at Gabe, then shrugs. “Yes, sure.”

Gabe needs some water. He didn’t want to train with Tyson at all. “You need to work on your high blocks anyway,” He tells Tyson, and gets a scowl in return. It makes him smile. Giving Tyson shit means everything really is right.

Except that Nate is giving him very judgmental eyes. “What?” he asks, wandering over to the well to get some water. He passes by where Josty, JT, and Alexander are sparring together; they’re well-matched, the three of them, even if they look like they’re laughing more than fighting. He considers correcting their form, but let them have their fun, even if it doesn’t look like Josty is paying attention to his warning. Maybe it is different, for the lesser nobility than for a prince.

“You’re in a good mood for someone with one more challenge to win so that Tyson doesn’t get married,” Nate points out.

Gabe shrugs. The well is near the exit to the main courtyard; brings him closer to the people who had gathered to watch the knights. He stops by it, pulls up a bucket. “I got through the other two. And a dragon. I think I can win one more.”

“You always think you can,” Nate tells him.

“And I have, so—” Gabe lifts up his hands, then picks up the bucket to take a drink. He looks at it, shrugs, then dumps some over his head. Behind him he hears the thunk of a practice sword against skin and a “That wasn’t fair!” from Tyson.  “What are you worried about, anyway?”

“Do you think you’re the only one who’s worried?” Nate demands. He glances over at where Tyson and Mikko are sparring. Mikko’s still got that ridiculous reach, but Tyson’s quick and aggressive, knows how to get inside Mikko’s reach, and he’s always stronger than anyone thinks. Most of the people who gathered to watch Gabe have turned their attention to Tyson and Mikko, nobles and townspeople and farmers all; Colin and Amanda and Lord Duchene from where they were chatting in a corner of the courtyard. Gabe’s pleased—let them see why you shouldn’t underestimate Tyson—but there’s the part of him that wants to kick out everyone who isn’t the Guard, too. This is their Tyson. Not anyone else’s.

“At least you get to fight for it,” Nate goes on. Gabe looks away from Tyson, the muscles of his shoulders and arms, the flush down the back of his neck. “I’ve just got to watch.”

Gabe gets it. If he wasn’t champion…

“You’re keeping Tyson sane,” he points out. “That’s a harder job, really.”

“Sure.” Nate doesn’t sound convinced, but he sighs, shakes his head, then glances sidelong at Gabe. “I’m glad it’s you, anyway. Comph would have done his best, but—well, no one’s more invested in Tyson not getting married than you, eh?”

Gabe straightens. “What does that mean?” he demands.

Nate rolls his eyes again. “Gabe.”

“I’m invested in Tyson doing what he wants,” Gabe says, enunciating each word. “In doing what my prince wants. Which right now is not getting married. And,” he curves his hand around the edge of the bucket. It scrapes in his throat. “Someday might be him finding a noble he wants to marry, and then I’ll fight for that.”

Nate shakes his head. He looks…sad, which is a ridiculous thing to look when Gabe’s just saying what they all know. What they all should feel. “You really would, wouldn’t you?” he says. He glances back at Mikko and Tyson. “You two.”

“Of course I would.” Gabe spots Lord Xavier with his horse standing at the edge of the crowd. Clearly Alexander is staying, and Gabe hasn’t seen Sabrina yet, but Lord Xavier clearly decided to leave. Gabe should—he should bid him farewell. As an honorable competitor. That is definitely something he should do, and also Nate will have to be quiet.

Nate does, in fact, go quiet, as he walks with Gabe over to Lord Xavier. Lord Xavier had clearly been watching Tyson, scowling, but his expression doesn’t change when his gaze flicks to Gabe.

“Good morning,” Gabe tells him, nodding. Lord Xavier gives him a baleful look.

“Indeed,” he says, his head inclining a tiny amount, no more than any noble to a knight.

“Heading out?” Gabe asks. Lord Xavier gestures wordlessly to the packs on his horse. “I hope you had a pleasant stay, then,” Gabe goes on. Nate makes a quiet, amused sound behind him. 

“Your king puts on a good show,” Lord Xavier agrees. “I’m not surprised by that.”

Gabe shouldn’t punch a nobleman, probably. Even if he’s being a dick. “Well, it was an honor competing against you,” he says, and holds out his hand. “Better luck next time, yeah?”

“Sure, of course.” Lord Xavier shakes his hand, quick and too hard. “Next time I’ll know to skip the work and talk to the prince, eh?”

He puts a stress on _talk_ that makes Gabe bristle. “What?” he demands.

“Like you got your answers on your own,” Lord Xavier says, waving a dismissive hand. “The others, maybe—though Prince Jamie sure didn’t figure it out on his own, we all know not a lot’s going on there—but who are you?”

“Hey now,” Nate says. Gabe glares.

“I got my answers the same as everyone else who got it right,” he retorts. The gets to Lord Xavier, clearly, his eyes narrowing and his lips pressing together, somehow ratlike. 

“That tracks with what I’ve heard about the prince,” Lord Xavier says, sharp and nasty. “Just gave his favorites the answers. I’m surprised Duchene got one, then; he’s too buttoned up for the prince, eh?”

Gabe’s hand tightens on the hilt of his practice sword. He can feel Nate tense behind him. “You want to stop,” he tells Lord Xavier, as even as he can. This is what he didn’t want to happen—this is what he’d insisted not happen, because people would think—

“I just wonder how the prince got the answers,” Lord Xavier goes on. “God knows he can’t have figured it out himself. I wonder who he had to get on his knees for? From what I’ve heard he doesn’t exactly have royal taste—”

The practice sword is in Gabe’s hand before he can stop himself. “You’ll take that back,” he declares. People are looking here now. Maybe before. Maybe they heard. Maybe Tyson heard.

Lord Xavier laughs, sharp and ugly. “Or maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe all I had to do was get on my knees for him like you—”

The sword isn’t enough. Gabe snatches Lord Xavier’s tunic, yanks him up, nearly off his feet. “You’ll take that back,” he says again, and it comes out a growl.

Lord Xavier laughs again. “Defending _his_ honor? What sort of honor does he—”

“And you’ll apologize to the prince,” Gabe interrupts. This is—noble or not, politics or not, Gabe can’t let this stand.

Lord Xavier snorts. “Or what?”

“Gabe.” That’s Nate, wary. Gabe ignores him. He lets go of Lord Xavier suddenly enough that he drops.

“Jost,” he snaps, raising his voice. Not that he needs to. The whole courtyard’s going silent, watching them. “Get my sword.”

“Are you _challenging_ me?” Lord Xavier drawls. He straightens up, tugging at his tunic to straighten it. Despite the drawl, his eyes are dark and angry. “The whole realm knows what the prince is like. I’m not saying anything they don’t know.”

“You don’t know anything,” Gabe growls. “Do you accept my challenge? Or are you a coward as well as a failure?”

Lord Xavier makes a low sound in his throat. “I accept,” he snaps, and turns to his horse for his sword.

“Tyson!” Gabe calls again. “My sword.” Everyone is retreating, making a circle; Gabe can see Colin and Amanda, their faces set; Duchene looking scandalized; nobility grinning and excited, money changing hands. Good. Let everyone watch. Everyone should know that even if the rest of the Guard let people get away with saying such things about the prince, Gabe wasn’t going to stand for it.

“Gabe, stop.” Gabe turns. It’s a Tyson holding his sword, but the wrong one; the prince is standing there with sweat still on his tunic and his brow furrowed. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes I do.” Gabe holds out his hand. “If you’re acting squire—”

“I order you not to do this,” Tyson snaps. He’s pale and his jaw is set stubbornly. “There. Now stop.”

“No,” Gabe tells him. He doesn’t listen to Tyson’s orders when they’re wrong. “Sorry, I can’t do that.” He reaches out and takes the sword from Tyson. It’s heavier than the practice swords, the live steel weighing it down. His focus sharpens with it in his hands.

“You could, though. I don’t care,” Tyson insists. “Let him say—”

“I won’t.” Gabe turns away from Tyson, shaking out his muscles. He’s tired already, which isn’t ideal, when Lord Xavier looks fresh; neither of them are wearing any armor. The ground at least is solid dirt, and Gabe knows it like the back of his hand.

Lord Xavier has his sword out too, and he’s holding it like he knows what he’s doing. He smirks at Gabe, when he sees him watching. “I’ll beat your ass back until you know where you belong, sir knight,” he draws out the last words.

Gabe takes a few practice swings. Lord Xavier is watching him, narrow eyed. “Others have tried,” Gabe tells him. “I don’t think you’ll succeed where a dragon didn’t.”

Lord Xavier’s eyes narrow, and his sword slices down.

Gabe catches it on his blade. There’s a collective intake of breath; everyone had expected someone to call start, probably. Gabe pushes that away. Pushes everything away except for rage and steel and muscle and Lord Xavier’s face and, behind Gabe, Tyson.

It’s nothing like the dragon. The dragon had been—adrenaline and fear and awe and the grim determined knowledge that this was saving his people, that he was keeping everyone back home safe, and that if he died in the attempt that was an honorable death, and one that everyone could be proud of, that Tyson could rest easy knowing his Captain died like that. This is hotter, rasher. There’s no grim determination, just anger that Lord Xavier would dare, anger that people think this about Tyson. If he fails, more people will think that, so he has to win.

Lord Xavier is good. He’s stronger than he looks and his sword is longer than Gabe expected, so his reach is better; he’s fresh and Gabe’s been training all morning. Their swords meet, clash; they break away, circle. Gabe doesn’t say anything. Gabe needs his breath; Lord Xavier is still sneering.

“Is this the best the Avalanche has to offer?” he asks. “I guess it’s not worth ruling, if this is the prize.”

Gabe closes again; Lord Xavier parries, counters. Gabe’s not quite fast enough—the steels cuts deep into his side, and Gabe swears and stumbles. Boos around them; for Gabe or Lord Xavier he can’t tell. His hand is wet when he pulls it away from his side.

“You should have known better,” Lord Xavier says, circling. He’s an idiot—he should be pushing his advantage. “You’re good, but you’re just a knight.”

Both Gabe’s hands are on his sword again. His ribs hurt, ache, but he pushes that away too—a swing, and Lord Xavier darts away; another and Lord Xavier catches it on his sword, falls back with the strength of it. He’s good, sure, but Gabe is better. Gabe slayed a dragon. Gabe _can’t_ lose.

So he doesn’t. It feels as simple as that, steel and pushing Lord Xavier back step by step until he falls, until he’s on his knees, until—

“I cede,” he mutters, Gabe’s sword at his throat. His sword falls to the ground.

Gabe takes a long breath. His side is burning. Cheers are filling the courtyard, cries of “Dragonslayer!” and “the Avalanche!” and “Landeskog!” Those can carry him through the pain.

“Take it back,” he says. Lord Xavier scowls, his chest heaving with lost breath.

“I retract what I said about the prince,” he says. Gabe will give him this credit—it’s loud enough for everyone to hear.

More cheers. A “That’s right you do,” comes out of the crowd, where the servants are huddled, and a “The prince!”

“And apologize to him,” Gabe demands. He keeps a hand on the sword, pushes his hair out of his face with the other. His hand is wetter than sweat should make it.

He turns, so that Lord Xavier can see behind him, so he can see Tyson’s face, the expressions of pride and anger and embarrassment and pleasure as Lord Xavier tells him, so sincere so as to be sarcastic, “I’m sorry for anything dishonorable I may have said or heard about you, your highness.”

Gabe growls, but Tyson shoots him a hard look. “I accept your apology, Lord Xavier,” Tyson says, his face set. “Now leave. I don’t want to see you here.”

Lord Xavier hesitates. Gabe can’t figure out why until, “Sir Landeskog,” Tyson snaps.

Right. His sword. Gabe lets it fall, takes a step back, towards Tyson. Somehow Nate’s there on one side of him, Mikko on the other. Their hands close on his arms. It’s probably good—the ground is getting a little unsteady.

“Good riddance,” Lord Xavier tells them all. The crowd parts to let him through towards his horse. Colin, Amanda, and Lord Duchene are standing on the way; he gives them a sarcastic laugh. “I wish you the joy of winning,” he throws at them, then he mounts up.

Someone jeers. It sets off someone else hissing. Maybe there are more sounds, but they all sort of blend together. Everything sort of blends together, earth and sky and people and—

“Gabe?” Nate. Worried. “Gabe, come on—”

“’m fine,” Gabe tells him. It comes out more slurred than he thought.

“Gabe?” Tyson this time. Also worried. He’s not smiling. It’s wrong; Gabe always wants Tyson to be smiling. “Fuck, Gabe—”

“’s okay,” Gabe tells him. He thinks about reaching towards him, but if he does then maybe it’ll be harder for Mikko and Nate to hold him up. “I won. People can’t say things about you.”

“Yeah, sure,” Tyson agrees, sounding way more dismissive than Gabe thinks he should, which he’ll point out. Soon. As soon as he wakes up.

///

He drifts in and out—

_“Doctor!”_ someone is calling, and then he’s moving and there are stairs, and—

_“I don’t care bring him here”_ and—

The smell that Gabe somehow knows is Tyson all around him and _“don’t you dare die on me, Landeskog, can’t you follow an order for once,”_ and—

EJ over him, shaking his head, and—

_“How’s he doing?”_

_“I know I messed this up too but I can handle this right now, Victor—.”_

_“I didn’t mean that, Tys. I just want to help.”_ and—

A hand on his cheek soft and calloused, and—

_“If he can’t compete—”_

_“We’re putting it off.”_

_“We can’t delay a challenge, think what that’ll look like!”_

_“Would you rather send the message that my knights shouldn’t defend me? What’ll_ that _look like?”_

_“…three days. I can give you that.”_ and—

Pressure and pain on his side and his hand clenched around someone’s and trying not to scream knights don’t scream but it hurts it hurts there’s a needle in him, and—

_“Wake up, please. I’ll do anything. Just don’t go away again.”_


	6. Three Days

Gabe wakes up for real in a dream. It’s the only explanation he has for why his bed is so soft, the sheets so smooth; he knows very well this isn’t his bed, so he must be dreaming. If he died, he wouldn’t object to this bed being the afterlife.

He would like his side not to hurt so much. That doesn’t feel like something that should happen, if he’s already dead.

He opens his eyes. The canopy on the bed is a rich dark blue, shot with gold; definitely not a bed Gabe’s seen before. He tries to sit up—then groans when that hurts.

“Oh, damn, you’re awake.” There are hands, and Gabe knows them—Tyson’s helping him sit up, his hands brisk but gentle as he slides a few pillows under Gabe’s shoulders to help him up. There’s an expression on his face Gabe can’t quite identify. “Be careful, don’t pull out your stitches.”

“I—Tyson?” Gabe blinks, now that he can see the rest of the room. It’s at least three times as big as any of the chambers in the knights’ quarters, if a little messy—an overflowing wardrobe in the corner and a dressing screen with some tunics Gabe recognizes thrown over the edge; a desk covered with papers and a few books; an armor rack. A big fireplace with chairs around it in the same rich blue, with blankets of other bright colors.

Gabe was right. He’s never been here before. He’s never been in Tyson’s room. Which means—

“Why am I in your bed?” he asks. It comes out a croak.

Tyson’s next to him on the bed, handing him a glass of water and watching him closely as he drinks it. “You almost got yourself killed defending my nonexistent honor, it seemed like the least I could do to let you recuperate somewhere more comfortable.”

“I always knew you were hiding luxuries,” Gabe tells him. “It’s a very comfortable bed.”

Tyson flushes. “Yeah, well. You know me.” He takes the glass of water back when Gabe’s done with it, puts it down on the bedside table.

Gabe does know Tyson. Gabe’s always imagined Tyson having a bed like this, when he’s imagined Tyson’s bed. Which he hasn’t, often; even when he dreamed—the prince’s bed seemed too far away even for dreams. Too dangerous.

“How long have I been out?” he asks. That’s safe.

“About half a day.” 

“Not too long.” Gabe hums. He’s had worse.

“Yes too long!” Tyson snaps back. The expression is coalescing—it’s anger. “Any time is too long!”

Gabe sighs. “It was just a scratch, Tyson—”

“A scratch that almost bled you to death!” His voice gets high on the last word, and he stands up, so he can start to pace.

“That I got defending you,” Gabe points out. He just woke up. He doesn’t think he deserves getting yelled at.

“I didn’t ask you to!” Tyson whirls on him. His cheeks are flushed and the feat and worry are clear in his eyes. Gabe must have been badly off. “I never asked you to get into a duel about some dick saying shit about me because he was mad he lost!”

“Yes you did.”

“When? When did I ever—”

“When you made me your champion,” Gabe says simply. But even that’s—“When you made me captain. When your father knighted me.”

 Or maybe it was before that—maybe it was when they were squires together and Tyson had made a boy fresh from the country so clueless that anyone could take advantage feel at home. When he’d never once demanded different treatment for being a prince. When he’d whined a lot but never hesitated to have no free time, pulling both duties. When he stopped every time to listen to any peasant, when he took the darkest times and turned them around with a joke. When Tyson’s self-deprecating jokes started to sound sharp, like he believed them. 

Gabe doesn’t know. He just knows it’s true.

Tyson’s gone red, and he glances away, then back at Gabe. “Well, stop. I’m ordering you. As your prince.”

Gabe smiles, a little. “No.”

“No? You can’t just—”

“I’m not going to stop defending your honor.” Gabe shrugs, winces as that hurts. “I’m not sorry.”

“You should.”

“Why?” Gabe demands. “Why is it not worth it to defend you? Or the Avalanche? Isn’t that why I’m here? That’s why—”

“Because you need to stop trying to die for me!” Tyson yells, and it cuts through the air, until just Tyson’s harsh breath is filling the room.

“Tys—” Gabe starts. He doesn’t know where to finish. This isn’t a Tyson even Gabe gets often, the parts of him he hides under jokes and banter and carelessness—a few times as young men, when Tyson sat in at Council sessions or meetings with his father and came out grim-faced and quiet until Gabe found him in his favorite spot in the hedge maze and drew him out; during the war, maybe, late at night when they didn’t have to see each other’s faces; after the dragon came and Gabe was about to set off, when Tyson had ordered him to come back. No more than that.

Tyson turns away, so that his back is to Gabe, and he can look out the window. Gabe wonders what the view is—what Tyson would rather look at then him.

“No, you need to stop. It’s not worth it. You’re the only person who thinks I have any honor left anyway, or who cares about that—I don’t and it’s fine, I lost my dignity a long time ago, I don’t need it to be Lord of the Avalanche and Victoria is fine so I’ll never have to be more than that. Like, nothing Lord Xavier said was wrong, anyway, I’m not smart enough to get the answers and I don’t care about things princes are—”

“I’ll fight you too,” Gabe tells him, shifting like he’s going to get up. Tyson’s there in an instant, pushing him back down. He’s paler than usual too—Gabe wonders if he slept.

“Lie down, you idiot.” His hands are warm on Gabe’s bare shoulder, steady in their strength in a way Gabe can never quite forget. “If I get you hurt arguing with you now I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“No one will be surprised,” Gabe points out. He lets Tyson push him, though; his breath catches a little as he’s lying in bed, Tyson hovering over him. Tyson goes red.

“Yeah, well, I told EJ that we didn’t need chaperoning, so don’t prove me wrong.”

“Then stop arguing with me.”

“Then stop being an idiot.”

“Not as long as it means letting people insult you,” Gabe insists, and Tyson rolls his eyes. “No. Tys.” He reaches out—somehow his hand is on Tyson’s. “It is worth it. It will always be worth it.” He tugs at Tyson’s hand until he can bring the knuckles to his mouth, brush a kiss over it—like he had so many years ago, swearing fealty to the Avalanche. Except they aren’t in open court now, with everyone watching and Tyson clearly trying not to laugh at the dick joke he was definitely making in his head and Gabe half a second from rolling his eyes at Tyson’s glee and inappropriate jokes. Now it’s just Gabe and Tyson and Tyson’s big eyes and the curve of his lips and his sharp inhale. “Defending you will always be worth it to me.”

“Because you’re my champion,” Tyson says. It’s a statement, but it sounds like a question.

Gabe—“Yes,” he says, and even he hears the lie.

Tyson makes a low noise that Gabe can’t interpret, doesn’t know if he wants to, and bites at his lip. He’s still close, sitting on the bed next to Gabe, his hand on Gabe’s shoulder. “Gabe, I…” he shakes his head, and he looks panicked again.  “You can’t just go around saying things like that. Not when I—you left and then you came back and then you almost died and I can’t lose you again, you know? I can’t, and you care about—honor and duty and your oath, and I might not have honor or be much of a prince but I won’t be that person, I won’t ask, but you almost died and I wouldn’t have said anything—I might get married and we’d have to—and I’d lose you again, but—I can’t ask. Not when I don’t know, and—”

“Tyson,” Gabe interrupts. Tyson pauses, his whole body tense, his eyes wide—then he starts again.

“That wasn’t me—I’ll leave and we’ll forget about this and it won’t matter, it’s not something you didn’t know anyway, if you don’t want it I get it, I just couldn’t stand it, and really it’s your fault for trying to die for me _twice_ before I told you I loved you then saying that sort of thing, and—”

Gabe’s kissing him before he knows he’s doing it.

It hits them both at once. Tyson groans, and presses closer, and Gabe—he’s spent years pretending that he doesn’t want this, trying not to want this, not to want what he can’t have; pretending to himself and everyone else that all he ever wants of Tyson is to be his friend, his knight, because he knew he couldn’t be any more. Pretending that the reason for the lengths he’ll go to give Tyson what he wants are simply because that’s what honor demands. But—I love you, Tyson had said, and Gabe’s only a man, and he’s injured and weak, and that’s maybe what he’ll say later, but now Tyson’s here and warm and might be getting married soon and he’s definitely something Gabe can’t have but it doesn’t matter because he loves Gabe, because he has Gabe in his bed and Gabe can’t stop kissing him.

“Gabe,” Tyson murmurs, kissing him again and again. “Gabe, fuck, yes, please—really?” he asks, pulling away a little, and his eyes hopeful but Gabe can see how he’s holding himself, the doubt, and—

“Come here,” Gabe says, and reels him in again. He never wants to stop kissing Tyson. It’s been almost fifteen long years of dreaming about it, of looking away from Tyson the next day and not letting himself remember his dreams; it’s somehow better than he’d dreamt, even though it’s sloppier and wetter and they’re both desperate with it. Gabe’s hand is on Tyson’s neck, and he tries to sit up to press himself closer, and—

“Fuck,” he swears, as his side protests angrily.

“Oh, damn,” Tyson says, sitting back. Gabe’s seen him after disappearing with someone before; seen and told himself he didn’t care. He looks better now than all those other times, flushed and with swollen lips and desperate eyes. “Damn, are you okay? We shouldn’t—”

“We definitely should,” Gabe tells him. “We’ll just be careful. Come here.”

“If I hurt you doing this I’ll really never hear the end of this,” Tyson points out, but he lets Gabe pull him in, until he’s straddling Gabe’s hips, below his injury but over the blankets. He’s a warm and heavy weight on Gabe, and he’s leaning over Gabe with his hands braced on either side of Gabe’s head, which gives Gabe the leverage to run his hand over Tyson’s neck again.

“Then be careful,” Gabe tells him, and pulls him down to kiss him again, and again. The sounds Tyson makes into his mouth are—they’re better than anything Gabe could have imagined, just like having Tyson squirming on top of him is better, just like Tyson moving from his lips to his jaw to his neck is better.

“Fuck, Tyson,” Gabe groans again, and he run his hands down to Tyson’s shoulders before he realizes that Tyson’s wearing a tunic and that feels like a catastrophe. “Off, why are you still wearing this?”

“Because I’m busy, Gabriel,” Tyson replies, but he sits up—carefully, away from Gabe’s injury, and pulls off his tunic. Gabe’s seen him shirtless before, of course, but he hasn’t let himself look—now he is, and he wants to never stop.

“You knew I’m not, like, Nate—” Tyson starts, looking a little awkward, and Gabe rolls his eyes.

“Yes, I think I would have noticed,” he agrees, and draws his fingers over the solid muscle of Tyson’s chest, the softer skin at his belly, down to the edges of his hips. It makes Tyson squirm more, which is doing a lot on its own, given how he’s basically sitting on Gabe’s crotch. “I’m looking because I like it.”

“Oh. Well. That’s on your bad judgment,” Tyson tells him matter-of-factly. “Let’s—”

“I don’t have bad judgment,” Gabe retorts. God, he wishes he could just _move_ —he needs to sit up and kiss Tyson again, he needs to touch every part of him until he stops making comments like that, he needs to touch Tyson’s dick or get Tyson to touch his, he needs—“Come here.”

“You’re very bossy,” Tyson tells him, but he does as Gabe says, except for how he also pushes the blankets down as far as they can get without him having to move and that’s even better, both of them exploring. Tyson’s fingers brush over Gabe’s nipples and Gabe groans, so Tyson grins and does it again, and again, until Gabe shifts fitfully and then groans in pain instead and Tyson stops, instantly.

“Are you okay?” he asks, looking down at Gabe’s side where he’s wrapped in bandages. It’s not—there are the dreams Gabe hadn’t let himself have; about him winning something, doing something, that would get him granted a title high enough that he could dream, and he’d come in splendor and Tyson would look at him straight on in the same way Gabe sometimes caught out of the corner of his eyes, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. This is…not that look. This look is something more clinical, more worried, far away from the heat of a moment ago.

“I’m fine,” Gabe insists. “Go back to what you were doing before.”

“I’m not going to hurt you, Gabe.” Tyson’s eyes are dark and his jaw is set as he says it, like it’s something more than just what he says.

Gabe looks at Tyson, messy from his kisses and half-naked and still somehow noble, like it’s in his blood, a way of holding himself like he knows he’ll be listened to. Tyson shifts at his look, smiling a little sheepishly, like that much emotion embarrassed him.

Tyson’s going to hurt him, he knows. Not on purpose. Just because of the world outside those doors. He’s always known that.

But—

“I trust you,” he says, and means that.

Tyson’s eyes go wide, then dark; he opens his mouth then closes it again.

“Fuck,” he says, shaking his head. “I’m going to blow you so hard.”

“That sounds like a threat,” Gabe tells him, not bothering not to stare at his lips or show just what those words did to him.

“It is,” Tyson tells him, and moves off of Gabe to pull the blankets down the rest of the way, and the loose hose that he’d still been wearing. Then Tyson’s between his legs, studying his dick, and Gabe bites at his lip so as not to make any more embarrassing sounds. “You can’t go around just saying shit like that,” Tyson tells him, which he’s said a lot. “I might start believing you mean it.”

“I do,” Gabe says, and then interrupts himself to groan when Tyson starts nosing at his inner thigh. “Tys, come on, hurry up.”

“You have to promise to stay still and not hurt yourself,” Tyson tells him. “I’m not kidding. If I have to tell EJ that you reopened your wound because my blow job skills are that good—actually that wouldn’t be horrible.”

“Tyson,” Gabe grits out, and Tyson grins, and then—his mouth is hot and wet and he’s fucking good with it, of course, Gabe should have expected that; how good he is with lips and tongue. Gabe can’t move, so he has to—“Fuck, Tyson you’re so good, of course you are,” he mumbles, and Gabe feels the noise Tyson makes on his dick, can see how his hips start to rock against the bed. “No, don’t—I want to do that,” he tells Tyson. Tyson looks up at him then, his mouth still on Gabe’s dick, and he looks like a mess and he looks beautiful, and Gabe doesn’t care what anyone says, if this is Tyson on his knees he can’t find any dishonor in it. Instead he puts his head on Tyson’s head and then, when that works, in his hair; Tyson makes his pleased sound again and goes back to it, Gabe grunting out praise and expletives to the wet sound of Tyson’s mouth.

It builds in him somehow slowly and all at once, this magic dream of a moment, until he’s gasping a warning and Tyson just somehow manages to smile around his dick and suck harder until Gabe comes in Tyson’s mouth, and he can’t help but move and it hurts but it’s so good, relaxing back into the magically soft bed as Tyson strokes him through the aftershocks.

Gabe stares up at the canopy for a second, trying to get his breath back. That was…

“When you’re better,” Tyson tells him, and falls onto the bed next to him. Gabe looks over—Tyson actually licks his lips. “You can fuck my face.”

Gabe didn’t even know he could make the sound he makes at that. There’s too much in it. The image and the dream of later. “When I’m better,” he tells Tyson, and gets a hand in his hair again to pull him closer to Gabe, so Gabe can reach down and wrap a hand around his dick—it’s already hard and Tyson makes a sound that’s mostly a whimper and ducks his head so it rests against Gabe’s shoulder. “What I’m going to—I’m going to spend all day here, touching every part of you until I’ve proved to you all the ways you’re worth this, worth everything.”

“Fuck, Gabe,” Tyson whines into his shoulder, as Gabe strokes him slow and inexorable, to the sound of his voice. “Gabe, please.”

“What do you want?” Gabe asks, partly to be mean but also because he needs to know. “I’ll give it to you, whatever it is. Whatever you need.”

“You,” Tyson says, and Gabe’s hand jerks in surprise. “You, just—make me come, please,” he adds, and it’s somehow a plea and an order all in one, so very Tyson.

Gabe tightens his grip, speeds up his hand. “Whatever you say, your highness,” he murmurs, and Tyson chokes something out against Gabe’s skin and comes over his hands.

“God, Gabe,” Tyson mumbles, and then he’s somehow kissing Gabe again, slow and lazy now, the desperation gone—or at least the edge taken off. “God, that was great, I knew it would be, it couldn’t not be—I mean, you’re you, and I’ve had enough practice at least, and—”

“Shut up,” Gabe tells him. “Don’t. Not now.”

“I thought I was the prince around here,” Tyson mutters, but he arranges himself with his head on Gabe’s shoulder on Gabe’s good side, so Gabe can wrap an arm around him, stroke idly up and down his arm. “I’ll clean us up in a moment,” he adds, yawning.

“Sure.” Gabe can’t help pressing a kiss to his messy curls, because they’re there. Because it definitely makes Tyson smile, even as he rolls his eyes.

“And your wound wasn’t even reopened, well done us,” Tyson goes on.

“Well done,” Gabe agrees again. “Probably because this is the softest bed I’ve ever been in.”

“The perks of being a prince,” Tyson tells him on a yawn.

Gabe hums. He knows that—he knows the significance of that, floating out there on the horizon.

But tonight, he lets himself have this—Tyson curled in his arms in his ridiculous bed, safe and warm and happy.

///

Gabe wakes up again a few hours later when Tyson disentangles himself from Gabe and gets out of bed. It’s enough to make Gabe open his eyes and glare, though it’s made better by the fact that Tyson hasn’t bothered to put on clothes.

“Come back,” Gabe says. Demands. Whichever it is, when he can’t get up to follow Tyson and pull him back to bed.

Tyson’s still facing away from Gabe so he can’t see him, but he knows what the tilt of Tyson’s head looks like when he’s rolling his eyes. “I’m just cleaning up. Unless you want to be the one the servants tease for the rest of your life?”

He leans over a little to get to the washbasin to wash his hands. It’s a sight—Gabe had told himself for so long he didn’t want to look, and now that he can, he never wants to stop. “Actually,” Gabe says. “I take that back. You could just stay there.”

“What?” Tyson turns around, then notices Gabe’s leer and blushes even as he clearly preens with it a little. “Oh, come on. You’ve seen me naked before.”

“Not like this.” Gabe wants Tyson back in bed where he can reach, where he can touch all the parts of him he didn’t get to before. And all the parts of him he did. He wants to figure out a way so that Gabe can taste every inch of that bared skin, to kiss the flush all the way down. “This is different.”

Tyson’s eyes flick over Gabe’s shoulders. “Yeah,” he agrees, and doesn’t tell Gabe to stop watching him as he comes back to the bed with a wet rag, that he uses when he pushes the blankets away so he can get to Gabe’s thigh. “Um. Anyway. How’s your side feeling? Any worse?”

“No.” Gabe shifts experimentally—if anything, it feels better. “But you could come over here and find out.”

“Gabriel, are you asking me to kiss it better?” Tyson asks, his lips twitching. “I’m sorry to break it to you, but I don’t have that sort of magic.”

Gabe shrugs. “I thought you must have something to make up for all the rest of it.”

“Unfortunately, no healing. You’ll have to go to the lakes for that.”

“I don’t know. I think if you kissed me I’d feel better.” It makes Tyson laugh.

“Not with that sort of line,” he tells Gabe, hovering just out of reach. “Come on, what sort of man have I made my champion if that’s the best you can do? Maybe I should have had auditions for that, to be worth—”

Gabe gives up and tugs him in for another kiss. It’s as good as last night, minus the bad taste of their breath.

When he lets Tyson go, Tyson’s panting and staring a little at Gabe, his mouth hanging open.

“I knew there was a way to get you to be quiet,” Gabe informs him, grinning.

“It doesn’t give me a reason to stay quiet,” Tyson teases back, and looks ready to go again when there’s a knock on the door.

Gabe and Tyson both freeze. “Yes?” Tyson calls.

“Your highness,” says a voice Gabe vaguely recognizes as the court physician. “I’ve come to check on Sir Landeskog, if he’s awake?”

“Yes, of course. One moment.” Tyson swears under his breath, then scrambles for clothes. Gabe runs a hand through his hair, but there’s not much else he can do—there’s not much Tyson can do; he looks well kissed, which is a look Gabe likes but not one the doctor should see.

Gabe’s ready to see if he can pretend to be asleep so the doctor goes away again, but then Tyson’s tugging on a tunic and opening the door. “Hi, sorry. He’s awake.”

The doctor, a tall thin man with brown skin and warm eyes, gives Tyson a judgmental look, then flicks his eyes to Gabe. His lips twitch. “I see he is,” the doctor agrees blandly. Tyson’s giving him his most innocent face, but Tyson’s notoriously bad at that. “I just want to check the bandages and make sure nothing changed during the night,” he tells Gabe, and then does that, brisk and professional, as Tyson hovers in the background looking worried.

“That all looks fine,” the doctor says at last. He throws a look over at Tyson. “You’ve been taking good care of him.”

Gabe chokes. What must he think? He won’t tell anyone, he’s notoriously close-lipped, but…Tyson chuckles sheepishly. “You know, I try.”

“I know.” The doctor gets up from the bed. “Though I would warn against intense physical activities until he’s healed.”

“Oh don’t worry, we’re limiting his movement,” Tyson informs him, apparently having regained his shamelessness. “What are your opinions on if he needs to be tied down?”

“Tyson!” Gabe snaps, then immediately shuts up—it’s not his place to say that to the prince. But the doctor just laughs and shakes his head, clearly used to Tyson.

“I’d say to be careful, your highness,” he tells Tyson. “You need him in fighting shape for the last challenge, no? I wouldn’t want to lose my best customer to some other land.”

“I’m just trying to hurry up his healing!” Tyson protests, but Gabe can barely hear him, or how he bickers with the doctor as he shows him out. The challenges. Suddenly they’re in the room—suddenly the world is in here, the world Gabe had been pretending didn’t exist since he woke up in Tyson’s bed.

There was a reason he hadn’t let himself think this. Let himself have this. A reason, and it looked like the circlet sitting carelessly on Tyson’s desk.

“So,” Gabe asks, as Tyson closes the door behind the doctor, after he’d said something to one of the servants outside about food. The servants, because of course Tyson had servants outside his door. “Did I miss the challenge?”

“No, I got father to move it,” Tyson tells him. He comes back over to the bed, sits down next to Gabe. “You’re pretty popular right now, and no one wanted to see you disqualified for winning a duel. We’ve got three days—you should be up by then—so father can spend more time wooing Jamie and Alexander anyway.”

“Alexander?” Gabe asks. He’s the least highly titled of anyone there.

Tyson rubs his fingers together. “He’s got money. Father was really mad he didn’t get past the second challenge, actually. He was looking forward to sharing some coffers.” He wrinkles his nose. “That sounded dirty.”

Gabe looks away. “He did, actually.”

“What? No, I was there.” Tyson snaps his fingers in front of Gabe’s face. “Are you forgetting things? Should I call the doctor back? Did your head finally explode?”

Gabe bats his hand away. “No, I—he gave me the answer, instead of figuring out his own.”

“Oh.” Tyson shrugs. “Well then, I like him. Do you think that’s worth an earldom?” Gabe rolls his eyes. “Yeah, you’re right, father’s too pissed right now. But I feel like we should get him something. Do you think Mistress Baker would make a cake?”

“Tyson.” Gabe cuts him off. “Have they announced the challenge?”

“Not yet.” Tyson fusses with the blankets, pulling them up over Gabe, like that’s going to change anything. “When you’re up again. So no one has an advantage. This all has to be fair, after all.” The ‘fair’ has a bite to it.

Then he looks up. “So, a few days, then, right? Of just you in bed.” He leers, grinning, but Gabe’s seen him like this before—seen the war, Tyson grim faced before he puts on a smile and breaks the tension in a room; seeing Gabe off on his quest, joking until the last, until he’d grabbed Gabe’s arm and ordered him to come home, hot and intense for barely a second before he’d dropped back into his joking about how no one else could fill his helmets. Gabe knows him, knows his friend and his prince.

“Tyson,” he sighs. “If I don’t win—”

“Hey, we don’t have that sort of defeatist talk in this bed.”

“If I don’t—”

“Then we’ll run away to the Avalanche, and sic EJ on anyone who tries to bring us back. They’ll be stampeded to death.” Tyson drops back down next to Gabe, over the blankets.

Gabe smiles despite himself. Even though—“And even if I do win, I’m not—you’re a prince, and I’m just your champion.”

“You’re not just anything,” Tyson snaps, poking at Gabe’s chest. “You killed a damned dragon, okay? You got us through the war. You’re the best there is.”

It hits Gabe somewhere low in his ribcage, Tyson’s quick, honest fierceness. He won’t defend himself, but Gabe… “None of that’s a title,” Gabe points out. Tyson’s face is maybe six inches from him. It feels so close, and so far away.

“I know.”

“So if I—”

“I know, okay?” Tyson cuts him off. He’s looking at Gabe’s shoulder, not his face. “I don’t know. But I’ve—let’s just have this for now, okay? Then we’ll figure it out.”

Gabe has to smile at him, at the stubborn jaw and soft mouth. Three days, he thinks. Three days, then—and even if Gabe wins, then what? Then another competition, another political move, and it all ends with Tyson married and Gabe knowing what this feels like, and having to let it go.

It feels like the dragon all over again, the hit of that realization. Princes don’t marry knights. That’s not what people do. In time—however long it is—Tyson will find someone of fitting status he wants to marry, and Gabe will find a way to be happy for him. That’s what being a knight is. What being in love with his prince is.

“Stop thinking,” Tyson tells him, and scoots closer to knock his head against Gabe’s shoulder. “I can feel you worrying. I’d say it’d give you lines, but I’m sure your face just rejects those, so it’ll give me lines, worrying about you worrying. Then all my youthful beauty would be gone, and what would you do then?”

Gabe snorts, and Tyson looks up at him, grinning a little. “I would slay a thousand dragons for you,” Gabe tells him, too honest.

Tyson’s face twists, pleased and pained at once. “How about you kiss me instead?” he suggests, and Gabe does. It’s too hard, too desperate, on both their ends, but Gabe can’t bring himself to stop it. Three days. He’ll take this for the three days he can, take Tyson against him, warm and laughing and ridiculous and kind, and then he’ll do the honorable thing and let it go.

///

The next three days pass in a haze of sex and sleep and Tyson—well, Tyson leaves sometimes, because he does have duties other than getting creative to figure out what they can do that won’t exacerbate Gabe’s injury, but Gabe tries to use those times to sleep. When he gets fed up with that, Tyson ends up bringing—or asking a servant to bring—him some books and some of the paperwork from the barracks, because Gabe’s not good at recuperating. Gabe’s pretty sure Mistress Jost had sicced her son on him after the drong just so he would feel like he had something to do.

But here—Gabe learns what Tyson like, how he likes to be touched; learns the things he already knew about how Tyson looked in mornings (grumpy) and how he looked as he was falling asleep (very cute) and how he looked trying to work at his desk (very cute and very distractible). It feels like a dream, like the sort of thing Gabe hadn’t let himself dream of for so long. Even the occasional visits from JT and Josty and Nate, which definitely contain some coins changing hands and a lot of snickering, can’t change that.

Except eventually, it has to end. Three days later, and Gabe makes his slow way down to the barracks because for the first time in three days he needs proper clothes.

He’s greeted in the yard with a wolf whistle; Gabe scowls at whoever did that indiscriminately. Z, leaning on his sword with apparently no fear that Barbs was going to keep sparring, blows him a kiss back.

“Have fun, Captain?” he calls.

“Did the prince take good care of you?” Barbs adds, smirking. Gabe glares at both of them, looking around—more than just the Guard use the yard, and there are plenty of other knights and even some lords and ladies around, practicing their skill at arms.

“I’m feeling much better,” he tells them, as dignified as he can.

“I’m sure you are.” EJ appears next to him, claps him on the shoulder. Gabe winces, and EJ snatches his hand away. “Oh, you’re still broken, huh.”

“I’m fine,” Gabe insists. Fine, he’s still a little injured, and the doctor wasn’t happy about letting him up and about, but the challenge is this afternoon and he needs to be mobile for that. Despite Tyson’s insistence that they could find someone else to sub in. “Just a scratch.”

“Sure, a scratch that had you stuck in bed for three days.” EJ pauses. “Well, stuck in Tyson’s bed, so you probably were faking it.”

“I didn’t fake anything,” Gabe retorts. “And I didn’t ask—does everyone know?” He looks around. The Guard is giving him knowing looks, but he doesn’t see anything different from anyone else.

EJ rolls his eyes. “No. Well, no more than usual.”

“Rumor is that the prince was so impressed by your duel that he insisted you have the best care, which had to be at the castle and at his hand,” Josty adds, popping up next to Gabe. Gabe swears and nearly jumps. “Or that he’s using it as an excuse to delay the challenges. Or that he’s fucking you. But that’s not unusual. Everyone always says the prince is fucking someone.”

“Usually one of his knights,” JT agrees, popping up on Gabe’s other side. Gabe curses again. Where are they coming from? “They said it was me once. That was weird.” He shudders. Then he grins at Gabe. “You can have him.”

Gabe manages to keep smiling. “Thanks, really,” he drawls. “Now I need to get ready.”

“I’ve got your armor ready,” Josty volunteers, and then follows Gabe towards his chambers, leaving EJ and JT definitely laughing at him from behind him. “I just did chain,” he continues, “I figured that and your surcoat, if it’s anything else you’ll have time to arm yourself.”

“Thank you,” Gabe tells him, as they get to Gabe’s chambers. They look small, after the airy luxury of Tyson’s chambers. Small and cold and dreary. Or maybe that’s just that Tyson’s clothes aren’t strewn everywhere, and the trinkets Tyson likes to collect aren’t lined up on the wardrobe. None of which he had before, Gabe reminds himself. All of which he’ll learn to live without again. Just not yet.

Josty has to help him out of and into his new tunic, as he still has problems raising his arm above his head, but they manage it, and are working on the chain mail when there’s a knock on the door.

Gabe raises his eyebrows at Josty. The Guard rarely knocks; they have a bad habit of just storming in. Josty shrugs back, and finishes tugging Gabe’s mail on over his head before he goes to answer the door. “Yeah?” he starts, then. “Oh, shit—I mean, my apologies, your highness.”

Gabe turns around to give Josty shit about taking that tone with Tyson—then he freezes too. It’s not Tyson in the doorway.

“Your highness,” he echoes Josty, bowing to the princess standing in his doorway. It looks like an odd meshing of two worlds—for all Tyson’s been in and out of the Guard’s barracks since such a thing existed, Gabe doesn’t think he’s ever seen the princess here. She looks out of place, in a green gown that somehow shimmers around her and her circlet on her head.

“Please, don’t hurt yourself more. Tys would never forgive me if I let that happen,” she says. Gabe straightens, but he doesn’t know what to do then. He hasn’t seen her this close since her fight with Tyson after the council meeting; Tyson had said they’d made up, but Gabe still remembers what Tyson had looked like after. “I need a word.”

“Of course.” Gabe replies, like he could refuse. He glances at Josty, jerks his head; Josty nods, wide-eyed—he’s definitely running to tell the entire Guard about this—and ducks out the door, leaving Gabe alone with the princess.

She doesn’t say anything at first, just looks around Gabe’s quarters, a hint of interest in her eyes.

“Please, sit,” Gabe says, stiffly. She’s still the princess, after all. He looks around the room—he hasn’t been here for three days and hasn’t really had time to move back in, so it’s still neat; his desk chair is empty.

She shakes her head. “No, I won’t stay long. I need to get back to the castle, as do you. But you should sit,” she adds, her eyes flicking to his side. “I don’t want to overtire you.”

“I’m fine,’ Gabe tells her, like he tells everyone. She raises one eyebrow in an expression eerily like her brother’s, but unlike her brother, doesn’t say anything.

She does take another step into the room. “My brother,” she starts, and Gabe tenses. She knows. She must know, and she’s come to tell him what he knows—that he needs to stop. That he had his three days, and now he can live the rest of his life knowing that as Tyson marries a noble, royalty, like he’s supposed to.

The princess’s lips twitch at Gabe’s face. “My brother,” she says again, “is very fond of you, Sir Landeskog.”

Gabe doesn’t relax. He’s not sure in her eyes that’s a good thing, even if hearing it make him want to smile. “I’m flattered.”

“You should be. Tyson’s actually a good judge of character, when he wants to be.” She wanders over to the armor rack, draws her finger over the surcoat still lying there, blue and maroon.

“I certainly think so,” Gabe replies, maybe stressing the _I_ too much. He’d heard what she thought of her brother. “What are you doing here, your highness?”

She looks back at him. Her eyes are the same shape as her brother’s, but lighter. It takes long seconds, but then she looks like she comes to a decision. “I’ve come to ask you to be gentle with his heart,” she says. “If this doesn’t mean the same to you as it does to him, then let someone else win this challenge. Lord Wilson, perhaps.”

“Why would I do that?” Gabe demands, then remembers who he’s talking to. “Your highness,” he adds.

“Because Lord Wilson seems to care for my brother, and Tyson could grow to care for him as well.” She shrugs. “Or Prince Jamie—they’ve always been close, they could have a friendly marriage.”

“Tyson deserves more than that.” Gabe tries not to snap at the crown princess. “Even if it interferes with your plans.”

If Gabe didn’t know her brother so well, he might not have noticed the way she twitches at that, the guilty look. But Gabe’s spend half a lifetime watching her brother’s reactions, and so he catches it. “I’m sorry you had to see that,” she says calmly, though. “I was angry, and I said some things I shouldn’t have.”

“You did,” Gabe agrees. He’s not relaxing, though it’s better to hear her say it, perhaps.

“I know.” Her smile is crooked, a little rueful. It’s still a crack in her mask. “Siblings—but you know that, right? You have a sister.”

Gabe tilts his head at her. There’s no reason for the crown princess to know about his family.

Her smile goes a little more amused. “Do you not know how much Tyson talks about you?” she asks. “All of you, all his Guard—his friends. But especially you.”

“He does?” Gabe asks, then bites down on it. He hadn’t meant to ask that—to sound like it. He already doesn’t know what she thinks about him and her brother.

“I feel like I know you already,” she tells him. “It always sounded like such fun, Tyson’s time with you.” It’s not like Gabe didn’t expect something like this—Tyson talks all the time, of course he would talk about Gabe—but…it still twinges something in Gabe. Tyson might disappear up to the castle, to his other life, but he takes Gabe with him. Then her smile disappears. “That’s why I’m asking you this. Tyson’s always said you’re a good man. The best, possibly. The most worthy. So you’ll understand.”

“That you think I should step aside?” he asks. He would—he gets that. Thinking for the good of the kingdom, he understands. Thinking for the good of Tyson—he won’t, he wouldn’t, not until Tyson asks, but…he gets that there is a time when he will.

“No,” she says, and Gabe jerks hard enough to hurt his side. “No, I didn’t say that, necessarily. Tyson—I know you saw the worst of me, but I do love my brother, and I want him to be happy. He’s always happier with you.” Her smile twists again. “He’s generally happier down here, away from the castle.” She shakes her head. “But—you know Tyson. Not everyone values him as they should. Including—too many people in my family.” Her eyes are bright and clear as she looks at Gabe. “I’m asking that you do.”

“Of course I do,” Gabe retorts, too fast. Does she think he doesn’t? That he, of all people, doesn’t know what Tyson is worth?  

“I don’t just mean as—the things that the Council doesn’t think is worthwhile, his knowledge of the town, the people.” She waves a hand. “I mean—Tyson has a heart big enough to love a country. I wouldn’t have that go to someone who can only take a part of it. Who would prefer only a part of him.”

Gabe pulls himself up straight. He’s almost a full head taller than Princess Victoria, though she carries herself as if she could fill the room. “I—I’ll take as much of the prince as he’ll give, for as long as he’ll give it,” he admits, and he can’t make himself sound guilty. He shouldn’t, he knows he shouldn’t—he’s asking too much—but it’s Tyson. He can’t help it.

The princess shakes her head again. One strand of her otherwise neatly coifed hair falls into her face, and she brushes it aside. “If you’re waiting for Tyson to realize what he has to give, you might be waiting longer than you’d like.”  

“What—”

“I have to go,” she cuts him off, raising a hand. “We’re both needed at the castle, for the third challenge.” She smooths out her dress, then gives him a long, assessing look. “Good luck, Sir Landeskog,” she says at last. “I hope you do the right thing.”

“Your highness.” Gabe bows, less deeply than he should, given his injury. Her eyes dart to his side like she’s noticed, but then she nods, and leaves.  

Josty pops back in a second later, looking eager. “What did the princess want?” he demands. “Is she going to exile you for sleeping with her brother? Give you a medal?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Gabe tells him, rolling his eyes. It nicely hides the fact that he’s not sure of the answer. It wasn’t her telling him that he should leave now, for sure—but it still sounded like she didn’t think he was worthy of her brother.

He will be, though, he vows. In this challenge, and then—after.

///

“The third and final challenge,” the king reads out. Gabe’s standing with Colin, Amanda, Prince Jamie, and Lord Duchene in front of the dais; Tyson is nowhere to be found, which is making Gabe nervous. The princess is there, though, watching them all with an even look that lingers longer on Gabe than anyone else. “Will be to test your heart, as the first was to test your body at the second your mind.”

Next to Gabe, Colin makes a confused noise. Gabe gets it—or rather, he doesn’t.

“You must learn to follow your heart,” the king goes on. “And let it guide you. As such,” he says, and Gabe has a sinking feeling. “This will be a test of finding.”

“Does he mean a scavenger hunt?” Prince Jamie mutters.

Gabe doesn’t think so.


	7. The Search

He should have known it would come to this.

Gabe stands in front of the entrance to the hedge maze. God, he always hated this thing—because of his first time getting lost, because Tyson had it memorized by the time he could walk, and so always used it to hide when he’d pissed Gabe off, because Tyson has used it to hide other times too, when he didn’t want to be at court anymore, when he didn’t want his father to find him.

Gabe had gotten good at finding him here, over the years. Maybe it made sense, that he would have to find him again.

“The first of you to leave with the prince will have won the challenge, and the prince’s hand,” the herald intones. “Begin.”

The five of them look at each other, then start.

They branch off quickly, each of them going their separate ways. Gabe lags behind; with his wound, he won’t be able to go as quickly. Lord Duchene shoots him a triumphant look as he falls behind—he’d been the one whining about how it wasn’t fair given Gabe’s prior experience with the maze, until Amanda had shut him up by pointing out Gabe’s obvious handicap.

It doesn’t matter, though—Gabe knows the way, and he knows where Tyson will be.

He knows it’s barely midafternoon, but it still feels dark in here; the hedge walls always feel like they’re closing in on him, even when he got tall enough that they’re actually only a few feet above him. He’s really never seen what Tyson liked about this place. Tyson doesn’t even like mazes.

He takes a left turn, then a right. He can’t see or hear anyone else in the maze; the others must have gotten sufficiently ahead of him. He hopes none of them know where Tyson is; it occurs to him that Prince Jamie might. But—he doesn’t think so. Prince Jamie was never here long enough.

Another right, then one more left, and another. Gabe’s side is starting to hurt again, but he can’t stop. The doctor said he was probably okay. And even if he isn’t, it doesn’t matter. He has to keep going.

A right, a right. Then—

“Why do you always have to hide so far into the maze?” Gabe asks, and Tyson looks up from the nest he’d long ago made himself in the dead end. Somehow, years ago, he’d managed to get a bench brought in; Gabe can see that in the past year nothing’s changed, because there’s a blanket and a book tucked under the bench.

Tyson rolls his eyes, but he can’t hide his smile. “Why did you take so long?” he retorts. He crosses a leg over the other. “I’ve been sitting here for hours, Gabe, I’m bored.”

“I’m so sorry, your life sounds awful,” Gabe tells him. “Who is it wandering through the maze missing half their blood?”

“You said it was just a scratch,” Tyson counters, tilting his head and narrowing his eyes at Gabe’s side. “Is it hurting again? You shouldn’t have—”

“It’s fine,” Gabe repeats, for the thousandth time.

“Then you’re fine wandering around the maze,” Tyson counters, and grins smugly up at Gabe. Somehow, he’s managed to find the one patch of sunlight in the whole maze; it glints in the circlet in his hair and the gold embroidery on his tunic and lights up his skin and his eyes. Gabe’s breath catches.

“Gabe?” Tyson asks. His voice is quieter. Tyson never seems to know what he looks like, in times like these, but Gabe always has.

Gabe shakes his head. He’s allowed to touch, he reminds himself—he found Tyson; here, surrounded by hedges, he can touch him, and Tyson’s not going to marry anyone else today. Not yet. Gabe has a little more time. “Come on,” he says, “Let’s get you out of here, so this whole thing can be done.”

“Yeah.” Tyson shifts on the bench. “About that. I, um. I had some time to think, sitting out here doing nothing because that’s my role here.” He’s not meeting Gabe’s eyes. Gabe swallows. Lifts his chin. He’s going to do what Tyson wants, he tells himself. That’s his role here. Even if it feels like dragon’s breath.

“And?” he prompts.

“And.” Tyson swallows too, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “If this isn’t real, then you should let someone else find me. Any of these would be okay—actually, no, not Duchene, you should tackle him if you can, but any of the others would be all right. I don’t have that guarantee for next time my father tries something like this.”

Whatever Tyson wants. Gabe’s his knight. His champion. That’s what he does. He can do that. He told the princess he would, he meant it. No matter what.

But. “What do you mean, isn’t real?” Gabe asks. “What isn’t?”

“What—the last three days? The last—” Tyson waves his hand, like that explains everything. Maybe it does.

“Why wouldn’t that be real?”

“Because—” Tyson takes a breath. “Because you’re all—you care about honor, and fealty, and things like that, and you’re my champion, and if that’s why—” He gulps down more air. “If you just did that because you think it’s your duty…I tried not to make it like that, but I can’t—I’d rather just marry one of them than have you like that.”

“What the hell?” Gabe snaps. “I’m not—I wouldn’t sleep with you because you ordered me to. Which you didn’t.”

“There are ways to pressure other than ordering,” Tyson goes on. He’s still not looking at Gabe. “I know I—wasn’t subtle, and—”

“I slept with you because I wanted to,” Gabe cuts him off. Where the hell is this coming from? “Why else?”

“I don’t know!” Tyson retorts. “I’ve been trying to think, and I can’t—honor is the only one I can come up with. You’ve done stupider stuff than getting involved with me for honor.”

“Getting involved with you isn’t stupid,” Gabe bites out, sharp and instinctively defensive.

Tyson snorts. “Come on, Gabe. We both know that it is. I’m good in bed, but I’m not that good. And you’re—” He waves that hand again.

“No it’s not,” Gabe insists. Or, it is, it definitely is, and Gabe’s heart is going to break, but that’s not what Tyson’s talking about. “Why would you think it is?”

Tyson snorts again, mirthless. “You know. All the reasons.” He looks down at his hands, ticking off the reasons on his fingers. “I’m a sorry excuse for a prince, and a shitty lord, and my only use to the kingdom or my family is as a marriage pawn, and I don’t have a head for war or diplomacy and I always mess up the politics, and I’m—”

“God, Tyson.” Gabe’s on his knees before he can think twice about how that movement sends spikes of pain through him. It’s worth it, though, to grab Tyson’s hands, tug on them so Tyson stops counting. “You know you’re none of that.”

“I am, though.” Tyson shrugs, matter of fact. “What do you think all this is? This is my father finally finding a use for me.”

“It is not.” Gabe manages not to yell. He wants to. He wants to go—challenge everyone who ever said that to Tyson to a duel. “You had dozens of people competing to marry you, Tyson.”

Tyson’s lips twitch, but it’s wry, cynical. “None of them want to marry me, Gabe. They want the lands and the title and the political clout and the adulation. They don’t want me.”

“Yes they—”

“Not one of them would be here if I weren’t the prince,” Tyson cuts him off, still so horribly matter of fact. “It’s fine, I’m not complaining, I’ve got a lot of the benefits and it’s pretty great, being a prince, but it’s just—I’d rather marry someone that I knew was marrying me for all that than have you if it’s not real, thanks very much.”

“No.” Gabe doesn’t really have more planned then that, but it gets Tyson to look at him, eyes big and confused and a little red.

“No, it’s not real?”

“No, you’re not—you’re so much more than that,” Gabe tightens his hands on Tyson’s. “You’re—no one who actually knows you thinks you’re a bad prince.”

“You have to say that, you’re my captain—”

“And I’ve seen you,” Gabe interrupts. “You’re—who cares what the Council or a bunch of old nobles think? Do you know who loves you? Every one of the townspeople who you talk to like they’re real people. Every servant who you don’t order to do things. Every knight you’ve ever trained with. Every one of the Guard, who you got through the war.”

“You got us through the war,” Tyson cuts in. “I didn’t do anything except stand there—”

“And keep us going,” Gabe stops him before he can say anything else. “Not all of war is swinging a sword, Tyson. You kept us from drowning.”

“I cracked a few jokes,” Tyson insists. “You’re the one who—you and Nate and EJ and all, you’re the strategists. I’m just, like, I’m the name, I guess, but I’m not…you’re the Dragonslayer, Gabe,” he says, and it’s the first time Gabe’s heard him say it was the proper level of awe. It doesn’t sound like Gabe thought it would—like he won, like he finally proved himself. It just sounds like a word. A word Tyson is using for why he should marry someone else, be with someone else. “You’re the best knight we have. I’m just—”

“And I love you,” Gabe says. Tyson freezes. Gabe tugs at his hands, presses them to his forehead. He’s said it, now.  It’s out there, and Gabe can’t find it in him to regret it. He loves Tyson, and— Gabe’s told himself this is for Tyson’s sake, that he’s his champion for that, but he’s been lying to himself. He’d said he’d do this as long as Tyson wants, until Tyson doesn’t want to anymore, but—that’s not true. He doesn’t want Tyson to get married, not now, not ever, and not to someone who makes him think these things. He wants Tyson, wants him as much as glory, as honor, things he spent his whole life fighting for, and maybe that’s selfish. Maybe it’s dishonorable. Maybe it’s not what’s done, maybe it’ll prove all the nobles right about him. But if it gets him Tyson—it’s worth it.

He glances up—Tyson’s red-cheeked but looking at him now, his mouth gaped open. “And if I wasn’t a prince?” he asks, quiet. “If I wasn’t—if you didn’t have to be loyal?”

“I’m not slaying dragons for you because you’re the prince,” Gabe tells him, and Tyson finally smiles. It’s—

“So if we ran away to the Avalanche and never came back to court—”

“Sounds great, let’s go,” Gabe tells him, and now Tyson laughs, shakes his head.

“Wow, Landesnerd,” he says, but his fingers tighten around Gabe’s, ducks his head. “That was quite a speech. I thought you were a knight, not a bard.”

Gabe could joke, like he knows Tyson is asking for. But—he hadn’t known, really, how deeply Tyson had taken in all of the comments that fly around the court; how much of his laughter was covering for that. Gabe wants to protect him from that too, as much as he can. Wants to make him believe just what he’s worth—wants to make the world believe that too.

“I meant it,” he says, and watches with delight as Tyson’s cheeks go even brighter red and he squirms. That—he wants that for more than three days. He wants that forever.

“You’re awful,” Tyson informs him, looking away. Then he swallows, and breaks the moment by tugging Gabe up to his feet. Gabe winces. “And an idiot, why were you kneeling like that when you’re wounded? Are you okay? We can rest—”

“No, we need to leave,” Gabe says. “Go win this, so you won’t have to marry anyone.” Ever.

“Yes. Yes, we should,” Tyson agrees. He doesn’t move. “Are you sure you don’t want to rest some? Make use of the bench?” He pats it, waggling his eyebrows.

Gabe studies him for a second, then, “You just don’t want to deal with your father,” Gabe says. It’s not a question.  

“He’s not going to be happy.” Tyson’s lips press together, and he sighs. Then he shrugs, and gets to his feet. “But the longer we stay here, the more hope we’re giving him, so…” He loops an arm around Gabe’s side, tucks himself under his shoulder so Gabe can lean on him. Gabe thinks about objecting—he doesn’t want to walk out of here leaning on someone like that, but…he likes how Tyson feels, pressed against him like this.

They have to go slowly, like this; they make their way out of Tyson’s dead end, take a turn, and—

“Oh, have you been waiting?” Tyson asks. The other four suitors are standing there in a group, chatting quietly, though Prince Jamie has a rather stern hand on Lord Duchene’s shoulder.

“We thought we’d give you some time,” Colin says. He smiles, a little wry, a little rueful. “Are you done?”

“We are,” Gabe tells him, and feels more than sees Tyson exhale next to him. They’re done. Done with this challenge. Done with waiting. Done with pretending this is something Gabe can give up without tearing out his heart.

“Thank you for waiting,” Tyson tells them. “We’re good now, though—can you guys get out on your own?”

“We’ll find our way. You should go ahead,” Amanda says. There’s something in her eyes Gabe can’t read as she looks at them.

“I told you it was unfair,” Lord Duchene says under his breath. “Sir Landeskog knows this maze, and the prince wanted to be found—”

“I hope you aren’t implying this is illegitimate,” Prince Jamie says, sort of like he’s trying to be casual but it comes out as a growl.

Lord Duchene glances over at him, and subsides. “No,” he mutters.

Prince Jamie smiles, big and broad and dimpled. “Good.” Then he looks at Gabe. “Thank you,” he says, and sounds like he means it. “I wasn’t looking forward to having to deal with him for the rest of my life.”

“Hey!” Tyson yelps, as Amanda snorts.

“Like you’d have won,” she tells the prince.

Gabe tugs Tyson in closer, and smiles at Prince Jamie. He hasn’t slayed any dragons, Gabe remembers. It makes him feel better. “It’s your loss,” he says.

“Ugh, be quiet,” Tyson groans, tucking his face into Gabe’s shoulder. “You’re horrible.”

Gabe knows what that means. “No I’m not,” he tells Tyson.

“You are,” he insists.

Gabe shakes his head. “I’m going to keep saying nice things about you,” he tells Tyson, and grins when Tyson blushes. “Okay, let’s go. I can’t have people saying I took this long to find you.” 

Tyson rolls his eyes, but he leads Gabe out of the maze, leaving the other suitors behind them.

Tyson pauses again, right before the last turn before they’d be in full view of everyone waiting at the exit. Gabe knows what that’ll sound like. He can hear the whispers even from here. “We don’t have to go out here,” he says. “I know the other ways out. We can get out and then get the Guard to bring us horses and really run away to the Avalanche. No one can get to us there. Not even my father. Or anyone else.”

Gabe laughs, and shakes his head. “No.” He doesn’t say the rest of it—how he wants to be seen winning. Wants the world to know that Tyson’s champion isn’t going to let him down, that Gabe won. That Tyson’s worth winning. And whatever they think—Gabe can deal with that.

From the way Tyson shakes his head at Gabe, he might know anyway. “Fine,” he sighs. “Let’s face the music.”

He lets his hand fall from around Gabe’s waist; Gabe takes his hand instead. Tyson glances at it, then at Gabe.

“You don’t have to.”

“I know,” Gabe agrees. “Let’s go.” Tyson smiles, small and pleased and surprised.

“Fine,” he says again, and steps out into the sight of the court.

///

“I can’t believe you,” the king yells. Tyson flinches back from where he’s standing next to Gabe, but that’s the only reaction Gabe sees from him; Gabe squeezes his wrist. He’d started standing behind Tyson, but once the yelling started he felt like he had to move forward. “How could you?”

The king turns to pace back towards Tyson, his hands in the air. Tyson’s arms are crossed over his chest, and he’s looking down. “You’re the one who made the challenge something Gabe could easily win,” he retorts to his father. “What did you expect me to do?”

“I expected you to make the right choice,” his father snaps back. He’s slowed down his pacing, and his chin juts out too. “I was giving you the chance to choose, so you could find the best of the suitors—Prince Jamie would have done well, but if you had wanted one of the others that would have been fine. You were supposed to make the right choice!”

“And I did!” Tyson snaps back. “I chose Gabe.”

“You chose no one,” the king corrects, and this time it’s Gabe who winces, and Tyson who flicks a glance over his shoulder. “You know what this meant for the kingdom, Tyson, I didn’t think you’d find a way to mess this up too.”

“I didn’t,” Tyson protests. “You got to make nice with Prince Jamie and Lord Kerfoot, and we’ve made friends with most of the suitors, and they’ll support us, so—”

“We’ll have to do it again,” the king goes on, like he hadn’t heard Tyson. Gabe doesn’t let himself react. He knew—he knew that would happen, of course he did. Winning this had been a reprieve, more stolen time until someone else came, and he had to win again. He’d known that. He would live with it, because that was what it meant, to love a prince. And then he’d do the same again, the next time. “Maybe in a few months. We won’t get as many people, but we’ll find someone to marry. Some people worth marrying who’ll have you are still out there.”

Gabe makes a sound that is possibly treasonous, but he holds it in. The king is still the king. Even when he’s insulting Tyson, and Gabe would challenge anyone else for talking about him like that.

Tyson looks back at Gabe, and his lips twitch. Then he nods, like to himself, and takes a breath.

“No.”

“What?” The king turns.

“No,” Tyson says again. “No, we aren’t going to do this again.”

The king rolls his eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous, Tyson. Of course you will. We’ll set it up again, and—”

“No, we won’t,” Tyson repeats. “Because I’m not getting married like this.”

The king laughs. “What, because of your knight?” He tosses a careless look Gabe’s way. “No offense meant, Sir Landeskog; you’ve brought honor to our land. But Tyson,” Gabe apparently disappears from his view, “You have to marry someone who can bring something to the marriage. We need the money, Tyson, and the—”

“Here’s the thing, father,” Tyson interrupts. “You’re not very popular right now,” He crosses his arms over his chest. “With the war and the dragon and how this whole challenge has drained all the money that was supposed to be going to aid and is bartering away the prince. The council likes you, and some of the upper nobility, but they’re just about the only ones who do.” The king’s face is slowly turning red. Tyson doesn’t stop. “You might not hear what the people in town say, but I do. They’ve all told me.”

“You know who is popular, though?” Tyson points both fingers at Gabe with a flourish. “The knight who slew the dragon and got us through the war that almost devastated the country and just showed yet again that Avalanche knights are as good as any. The person who’s given them pride in being from the realm again.”

The king is scarlet now, and glaring. “What is your point, Tyson?” he snaps. “Is this rebellion?”

“Is it—of course it’s not rebellion, I don’t want to be king—can you imagine? That would be awful.” Gabe manages not to smile; the king doesn’t look away from his son. Tyson just shrugs. “I’m just saying—this is your best move. Money’s tight but we can definitely get some good trades or whatever from this—I mean, Lord Kerfoot’s oldest son is best friends with Gabe’s squire and Sir Compher, and we’re friends with Lord Wilson and Lady Amanda now, and we can throw some quests at Lady Sabrina and she’ll get her mother to ally with us. The challenges worked!” Tyson spreads out his hands in lieu of saying ‘ta da’. “But—the people don’t just want money, they want pride again, and sending me off to get married like we’re desperate doesn’t make anyone feel like we’re a real first rate land. So,” he goes on, still in that firmly chipper tone, “let Gabe win, and then we get our alliances to make the Council happy, an Avalanche knight won and we aren’t trading away even a prince like me for scraps so the people are happy, and you come out looking like you planned everything.”

The king is staring at Tyson like he’s never seen him before. Gabe’s staring too, but he’s pretty sure something very different is going through their minds. All Gabe can think is just how attractive it is when Tyson shows everyone how much they’ve underestimated him, even when one of those people was Gabe. He hadn’t thought of any of this before now. Had Tyson? He must have; must have been figuring this out as they walked to the castle from the maze. Maybe as Gabe was lying in his bed. Definitely since Gabe took his hand in the maze.

The king is still here, so Gabe can’t do what he wants to Tyson. Instead, he nudges his side, tries to convey at least part of it through the touch. Tyson, who’s biting more and more on his lip the longer his father is quiet, glances at Gabe, half-smiling.

“What is all this for, Tyson?” The king asks at last, at a volume that passes for quiet for him. “What, you’re going to marry your knight and live happily ever after?”

“No!” Tyson says, almost too loud, and Gabe probably fails not to wince. He’s not surprised the king knew. But—he’d been looking towards—

But Tyson’s going on, his cheeks red and glancing over at Gabe. “I mean, maybe eventually, I don’t know, I can’t—he’s right there, father, don’t make me talk like this.” He’s much redder now. Something in it goes straight to the pit of Gabe’s stomach. “But, maybe. I want the chance to find out. And it’s what’s best for you.” Tyson’s lips twist, a little wry. “People love a fairy tale, father. Even when it’s not theirs. Knight slays dragons, wins the love of the prince—that’s going to play very well.”

Gabe swallows. Put so starkly—it sounds unrealistic. Like a fantasy. Had he thought that, when he rode away to slay the dragon? That maybe this would win him Tyson’s heart? He doesn’t think so, but he can’t be sure. Maybe. Probably. He doesn’t know if he can care about the difference, when it brought him here.

The king shakes his head. “And this is really what you want?” he asks, his shoulders dropping a little. There’s always been a strong family resemblance in the royal family, but this is the first time Gabe really sees it. “Any of the others could take good care of you. They’re all worthy people.”

“Gabe’s the most worthy of anyone,” Tyson snaps back, immediate and instinctual, and Gabe shivers, thrills. “And anyway. I hear I’m a prince. Lord of the Avalanche. I can take care of myself. I can take care of _him_.”

It lands hard in the quiet of the room—just Tyson staring down his father, and Gabe standing very still behind him. If he keeps his mind blank—if he doesn’t think about that, about Tyson standing up for him, praising him, acting as the prince Gabe always knew he was—

“Argh,” The king groans at last. “I hope you finally know what you’re doing,” he tells Tyson.

“I hope so too,” Tyson admits, with a wry shrug. He doesn’t give the king time to say anything else before he grabs Gabe’s hand and pulls him away.

“And you. Sir Landeskog.” The king adds, finally actually looking at Gabe. Tyson’s still pulling, but Gabe stops, straightens. Stands at attention for his king, because he is Gabe’s king, if not his lord. The king’s eyes flick over him, up and down, assessing. Gabe’s always thought the king rather liked him, honestly; he can’t tell if that’s still true now. He can’t find it himself to care. “He better be right about you,” the king says, and Gabe takes it as it’s meant. He bows.

“I plan to prove it to him and you,” Gabe tells him solemnly.

“Great, we’re all proved right, it’s excellent. Gabe, come on,” Tyson chatters, and Gabe lets him pull him out the door.

The hall is actually quite full—the king’s guards, other servants, some nobles that Gabe expects were hoping to witness an explosion and look a little disappointed when everyone’s head is still on.

Tyson doesn’t seem to notice them. “Gabe,” he starts, as soon as the door’s closed behind them. “I didn’t mean—I know it sounded sort of gross and mercenary, but that’s how my dad thinks, I didn’t—and I mean, it’s not that I don’t want to marry you, it’s just that we have time and I think we should—where are you going?” he cuts himself off, when Gabe starts walking. Tyson doesn’t exactly scamper to keep up, but it’s closer. “Gabe, if you’re mad, you should say so now so I can go tell me dad that actually I didn’t mean any of—”

Gabe pulls open a door, finds an empty room—he doesn’t know what it’s for, but all he clocks is a round table in the center of it before he’s pulling Tyson inside and shutting this door too.

“Look I was just doing what I had to,” Tyson’s still going, looking a little stubborn and wild around the eyes now. “I thought you wanted this, and—”

Gabe cuts him off by kissing him against the door, long and hard and everything he wanted to do in the room, watching Tyson be brilliant. Watching Tyson win them their time.

Tyson makes a surprised noise into Gabe’s mouth, then he grabs Gabe’s shoulders and pulls him closer, meeting Gabe’s fervor with some of his own.

“Oh,” he says at least, when Gabe leaves his lips for his jaw, his cheeks, any bit of him. “So you’re not mad, then? Because if you are, I am a big fan of this way of showing it.”

“I love you,” Gabe tells him. He’s said it before, meant it before, but it needs to be said again. “That was brilliant, and I love you.”

“Oh,” Tyson says again, squirming a little. “That wasn’t—I mean, I just had to point out the obvious a little to him, that’s all.”

“That was not all,” Gabe informs him. “I’m—honored, that you’re my prince.”

“Ugh, Gabe, don’t,” Tyson mutters, looking away as much as he can when Gabe still has him backed up against the door. “That’s—”

“I’m going to keep telling you that until you believe it,” Gabe informs him, then kisses each of his very red cheeks. “Haven’t you heard? I’ll duel anyone who insults my prince. That includes you.”

“I’m still pretty sure that’s treason,” Tyson mutters, then squeaks when Gabe’s lips hit a place on his neck.

Gabe bites there a little longer, because he likes that sound, then lifts his head. “Then I’ll just have to find another way to convince you,” he tells Tyson, and this close he can feel Tyson shiver.

“Fuck, Gabe,” he mutters. Then he shakes his head, swallows. For someone who’s pinned against a door and not looking like he’s objecting to that, he suddenly looks a little uncomfortable. “And, I mean—you know, the thing in there, about how I didn’t want to marry you, that wasn’t because of—you, or your position, or anything? This whole thing has sort of put me off marriage for a bit, and honestly there would be a lot more politicking before Veebs can figure out how to convince the Council that would be okay, but it’s not—there’s no one I would rather marry than you, you know that, right? You’re—I mean, even if I didn’t love you, you’re the best knight and captain and you slayed a dragon and you’re kind and you look like you—I mean, you should be the prince, probably, just on looks, and—”

Gabe kisses him again. He might claim he didn’t hear anything past I love you, but that’s a lie—he hears all of it, and none of it makes him want to kiss Tyson any less.

This time they both agree that they’re done talking, apparently, and Tyson’s leg hooks around Gabe’s thigh to tug him even closer and Gabe’s using whatever head space he has left after kissing Tyson to consider whether he could actually pick him up, when—

There’s a knock on the door.

“Are you done?” JT asks. “We’ve been sent to find you.”

“Well, sort of,” Josty amends. “EJ said to tell Tyson that if Gabe was getting beheaded than Nate should be Captain, not him, then Mikko pointed out that you might need to run away and elope so EJ’s debating which horses we’re taking, and then Kerfy said that if you do need to run away he has an estate that he’d lend you, then Nate said everyone was being ridiculous and that if you get married before he makes it up to the castle he’s going to behead you himself, and then—”

“We get it, all my knights are morons,” Tyson yells back through the door, and thumps his head back against the door. “Can’t we just stay here?” he asks Gabe, hopefully, over JT’s offended,

“Hey!”

“They’re your knights,” Gabe points out. Staying here sounds like a very good option, but—they have duties.

“No, they’re your knights, Captain,” Tyson retorts. He’s looking up at Gabe, all rumpled and the circlet he never took off after the maze haphazard on his head, and Gabe can’t resist leaning in as he sets the circlet right, so he can murmur in Tyson’s ear,

“I think you’ll find they’re called the Prince’s Guard, your highness.”

Tyson shivers all over at the last words. “Don’t—don’t say that,” he stammers.

 Gabe remembers—the first night, in Tyson’s bed. “Really?” he asks, pulling back so can make sure Tyson sees his judgmental face. “People call you that all the time. Is this why you try to stop it?”

Tyson’s red, and his eyes dart away from Gabe’s. “They don’t say it like you do,” he mutters, his voice rough.

Gabe doesn’t have a choice but to kiss him again at that, and then they both get distracted until,

“We can go away again, if you’d rather,” JT says. “Only we’re standing pretty close to the door right now, so we can hear you.”

“Or talk louder,” Josty adds. “What does Gabe say differently?”

“This is definitely treason,” Tyson tells Gabe. “What have you been teaching your squire?”

“Not enough, clearly,” Gabe mutters. “We’ll be right there!” he calls, but doesn’t let go of Tyson. He doesn’t want to let go of him.

“Duty calls, I suppose,” he says, and Tyson smiles, a little rueful.

“You and your duty.” He shakes his head, when Gabe starts to protest. “No, I know. If you don’t get the idiots who call themselves my Guard in line, they might do something stupid and stage a coup.”

“They would,” Gabe agrees. “For you. You know that, right?”

Tyson’s face does a lot of things, very quickly, that seems to settle on him rolling his eyes. “Why does everyone think I’d want to be king?” he demands, and slides out of Gabe’s hold, trying fruitlessly to straighten his circlet. “Being a king would be awful. Veebs has to live a very long and happy life with many children. Being prince is bad enough.”

“If you weren’t a prince, then you wouldn’t get a bed like yours,” Gabe points out. Tyson hums, and his gaze flicks over Gabe, openly admiring.

“I do like my bed,” he agrees. “You do too.”

“I do.” There’s a pointed sigh on the other side of the door.

“Yes, we’re coming!” Tyson calls. He looks at Gabe, sighs. “Ready?”

“Ready,” Gabe says, then adds, “Your highness,” just to watch Tyson scowl and go red.


	8. For Love

The air of the Avalanche always tastes different from anywhere else. Gabe forgets, when he’s away for a long time. It’s probably technically because of how high up in the mountains the castle is, but Gabe thinks it’s just the place—the old stone of the castle, the hangings and draperies and modern comforts Tyson’s had installed because Tyson does not believe in any holding of his being uncomfortable; the constant whistle of the wind around the tower windows.

It’s a good taste, definitely. But it makes it hard to spar, and so Gabe gives up on the knights’ drills early, much to cheers of the men.

“You’re all expected for lunch,” Gabe informs them, as they all set down their swords and start to disarm. The training yard here is much smaller than down in the valley—there’s barely enough room for this much flat space—but Gabe likes it, too. No courtiers watching him here—just a few stablehands and kids from the village. “Tyson gave strict instructions.”

“Oh he did, did he?” EJ waggles his eyebrows.

“Where is Tyson?” Sven asks. “Does he not have to train?”

Gabe ignores EJ, very dignifiedly. “He had something to do,” Gabe tells Sven. “He said he would be down, though.” He glances at JT, who still sometimes has more updated information than him. JT shrugs, and goes back to where he and Josty are doing some sort of game that involves slapping each other with the flat of their blade a lot. Gabe decides he doesn’t want to wade into that, and instead finishes disarming and goes to find Tyson.

The Avalanche castle isn’t large, and the servants all seem to always know where Tyson is, so it doesn’t take Gabe long to track him down to the room that he’s started using as his office.

Gabe pauses in the doorway. Tyson’s sitting at a parchment-strewn desk in his most casual pair of hose and a barely-embroidered emerald green tunic, and his hair is a mess, and his brow is a little furrowed as he reads.

Gabe smiles for a second, watching as Tyson idly sucks the end of a quill into his mouth. It’s not a look he gets particularly often, Tyson hard at work like this, but now that he sees all sides of Tyson’s life he realizes there’s more of it than he’d thought, when he only saw Tyson when he came down to see the Guard. Or maybe Tyson’s making more of an effort; he’s not sure. Either way, he likes how it looks on Tyson.

“I thought you were coming down to train,” he says at last.

“Sorry, I had audiences this morning, then I got busy. I have a whole duchy to run, you know,” Tyson says, not looking up.

“Really? I hadn’t heard anything about that,” Gabe, who’s heard Tyson’s whining about paperwork every day since they got to the Avalanche a month ago, retorts. “I thought you were just whiling your time away up here eating cakes.”

“Someday I’ll get Mistress Baker to come here, and it’ll be the best day of my life.”  Gabe gives Tyson a pointed look. Tyson looks back. “I said what I said, Gabriel.”

“I should know better than to compete with her for your love,” Gabe admits. Tyson smiles.

“Yes, you should,” he agrees. “Though we all know how good you are at competing for me.”

“No, I did that once, I’m not doing it again,” Gabe lies, and Tyson grins.

“That’s not what you said last night.”

“I said what I said, your highness,” Gabe retorts, and Tyson makes a face.

“Anyway,” he says loudly. “I heard from Colin; apparently he’s hosting a tournament next month. I was thinking you could take some of the younger knights and go compete? I know how much you like tournaments.”

Gabe looks down at Tyson. He does love tournaments, and loves the thrill of the competition and the opportunity to win his honor, to prove himself against the rest of the knights in the realm. But—that would be at least a week travel, a week there, probably a week back. Realistically, a month away from the Avalanche—away from Tyson.

“No,” he says. “I’ll stay. Let Nate go. It’s time he got to try his hand at a larger tournament lately.”

Tyson glances at Gabe in surprise, but then his face softens, and he smiles. “Are you saying you’d miss me too much, Sir Landeskog?”

“I’m saying I don’t trust you and EJ not to set the castle on fire,” Gabe retorts, but his hand’s on the back of Tyson’s neck, his thumb stroking across his hairline despite Gabe’s words. Tyson leans into the touch.

“EJ wouldn’t set the castle on fire, horses live here,” Tyson points out. “Well, if he could take the horses out ahead of time, or contain the fire—”

“We’re not talking about this,” Gabe decides. “Come on, let’s go to lunch. You made everyone come up, you should be there.”

Tyson pushes away from the desk with a sigh of relief, rolls his shoulders back. “I should put my knights to work on those figures,” he says, nodding back at the desk as they make their way out of the room and into the high, tapestry-laden hallway. “It’d be much more useful than a quest.”

“I’d rather take the dragon,” Gabe retorts.

Tyson glares. “You are not going dragon hunting anymore,” he snaps. “That’s a real order.”

Gabe raises his eyebrows. “Is it?”

Tyson bites at his lip. “No, you know that. But. No more dragons.”

Gabe thinks about promising it. He wants to. But…if a dragon comes, if his home is in danger, if _Tyson_ is in danger, and he’s the best one to ride out….

“Not unless absolutely necessary,” Gabe allows. Tyson huffs. “On my honor, Tyson. That’s the best I can do.”

“I know.” Tyson knocks his shoulder. “I wish you could do more, but you wouldn’t be you if you didn’t have your old-fashioned and probably deadly obsession with your honor.”

“It’s not an obsession,” Gabe objects, and that bickering gets them the rest of the way to the hall that’s big enough for the Guard to eat in but not the great hall.

“Hey.” Tyson stops Gabe, before they go in. “You know you can go to the tournament if you want to, right? I can run a castle on my own, and the Guard will be fine.”

Gabe rolls his eyes. “Yes, I know. I don’t want to go.”

“Because you do like to win, and you’re defending champion, and—”

“I want to stay with you,” Gabe interrupts. Tyson flushes and bites his lip, so Gabe has to wrap a hand around the back of his neck, so he makes Tyson look at him. “You’re worth not defending my honor.”

Tyson’s intake of breath is sharp. “You need to stop saying things like that in public.”

“Or what?”

“Or I am going to throw you out a window,” EJ interrupts, pushing between them to get into the room. “We thought the romance was bad. I didn’t know the happily ever after would be worse.”

“We’re adorable,” Gabe retorts, but he lets go of Tyson so they can all go in.

It is nice, all of them sitting at the circular table in the center of the room, Tyson facing the door with Gabe on his left and Nate on his right. The food is, as always, delicious, but Gabe can only sort of focus on it. The Guard is around him, all of them yelling over each other and shoving food in their mouth; Tyson’s leaning around Gabe to tell JT and Josty that he heard from Alexander, who will be visiting after the tournament. Outside, the wind is still loud, but in here…

“Hey, this round table idea is pretty cool,” Tyson says, looking around. His hand is wrapped around Gabe’s under the table, his circlet is askew on his head. “I’m not at the head or anything. Maybe we should keep it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Liked it? Want to talk about it? Comment or come chat on tumblr at [ fanforthefics!](http://fanforthefics.tumblr.com/)


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